David Alvarez received his B.A. from U.C. Davis, double majoring in Comparative Literature and Philosophy, and his Ph.D in English from Cornell University.
As a Fulbright scholar this year at Ghent University, Belgium, he is finishing a book manuscript on “Imagining Global Religion: Secularity, Religious Toleration, and Empire in the English Enlightenment.” Alvarez has published internationally on eighteenth-century English literature and philosophy, focusing on religious toleration, aesthetics, and the Third Earl of Shaftesbury. With Prof. Alison Conway, he edited a book collection of essays, Imagining Religious Toleration: A Literary History of an Idea, 1600-1830 (University of Toronto Press, 2019).
He teaches a wide range of courses on Enlightenment literature and philosophy, focusing on travel narratives and the early novel, religious tolerance, satire, and economics and literature. He has also taught introductory courses on boredom and coffee (these are two different courses), as well as a popular First-Year Seminar: “Be Yourself!”
His favorite book is Gulliver’s Travels.
Having held visiting academic positions in India, Germany, Italy, and Belgium, Alvarez led a successful effort in collaboration with faculty members, administrators, and staff to create É«ºüÈë¿Ú’s new Global Studies Fellows Program.
His most recent peer-reviewed publication is an article on “Religious Toleration” in The Routledge Companion to Eighteenth-Century Literatures in English (2023). Some presentations of his scholarship in 2024 include: