Dr Alex John Calder

In 2025, I acted as a Tutor for the Undergraduate Diploma in English Literature on the unit ‘The Modern Novel: Experiments in Narrative’ and I’m contributing two new courses to the PACE International Summer Programme based on my expertise in contemporary literature. I’m an early career researcher currently based at the Faculty of English and also act as the Membership Secretary for the British Association of Contemporary Literary Studies (BACLS). For the Cambridge colleges, I teach modern literature from the 19th through to the 21st century, supervise undergraduate dissertations on modern and contemporary literature, and lead classes for Practical Criticism and Critical Practice about close reading and new ways of interpreting both literary texts and the world. 

As a higher education teacher, my approach is to encourage independent reading skills by facilitating an enthusiastic and supportive classroom context. My teaching focuses on encountering and closely attending to literary texts before encouraging learners to reflect on how particular aesthetic effects might speak to broader contextual, historical, social, political, ethical, and literary concerns.

Originally from Caithness in the Highlands of Scotland, I completed an MA (Hons) in English at the University of Aberdeen and an MSc in Literature and Modernity at the University of Edinburgh. I completed his AHRC funded PhD at Selwyn College at the University of Cambridge in 2024: a single-author study of the complete works of contemporary author Ali Smith in relation to the ethics and politics of connection and disconnection in contemporary society. I’m currently contributing to and co-editing Ali Smith: Critical Essays alongside Dr Eleanor Byrne (Manchester Metropolitan University) which came out of a conference I organised for the Gylphi/Routledge “Contemporary Writers” series and I’m revising my PhD for publication into an academic book.