Dr Abhishek Shukla graduated with a BA (Hons) in English from St Stephen’s College, Delhi. He went on to read Anglo-Irish Literature & Drama at the University College Dublin, where he completed his Masters degree with first class Honours. He then enrolled at the University of Rochester, where he went on to specialise in Nineteenth-century American Literature, and to develop a wide-ranging interest in Intellectual History, Early-American Theology, Pragmatist Philosophy, and the Influence of Early-American Thought on Later-American Culture.

He wrote his doctoral dissertation on Jonathan Edwards, in which he examines a wide range of Edwards’s scientific, philosophical, theological, and literary works, and unites them into a single system of metaphysics. As a work of intellectual history, the dissertation examines Edwards’s metaphysics in light of the diverse intellectual tendencies of eighteenth-century New England; and, dwelling on the influence of Calvin, Newton, and Locke, sets forth Edwards’s signal contributions, not only to metaphysics, but also to epistemology, aesthetics, and ethics.

While at Rochester, he also taught and/or helped teach a wide variety of undergraduate courses, from an introductory course in Media Studies to an advanced course in the Nineteenth-century British Novel; from courses in Classical Greek Literature and Twentieth-century European Drama to courses on the Interaction of Science and Religion in America From the Eighteenth to the Mid-twentieth Century.

He is a recipient of the Gilman Prize, given each year to an outstanding graduating PhD, and was twice awarded the Dudley Doust Teaching Fellowship at the University of Rochester.

Nineteenth-century American Literature

Early-American Theology

Pragmatist Philosophy

Influence of Early-American Thought on Later-American culture

Literary Canons

Literary Movements: English Romanticism

Jonathan Swift

Classical Greek Drama

Anglo-Irish Literature