Contact Information
810 S. Wight Street M/C 466
Urbana, IL 61801
Research Interests
History of the human sciences
Modern Britain and Europe
Gender and Sexuality
Research Description
I am a historian of the human sciences and my research focuses on how changing understandings of mental and emotional health in the 20th century have interacted with and shaped marginalized identities and movements for social and sexual reform. My first book, The Intimate State: How Emotional Life Became Political in Welfare-State Britain (Oxford University Press, 2022), examines how British state-supported mental health initiatives made emotional intimacy and lifelong monogamy both politically valued and personally desired in the second half of the twentieth century. I have published articles related to this in History of the Human Sciences, History of Psychology, Journal of British Studies, and History of Medicine.
I am currently working on two new projects: one focuses on the history of intergenerational trauma and the other examines ongoing race, gender, and class-based disparities related to the diagnosis and treatment of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in the US, Canada, and the UK.
Education
Ph.D. Northwestern University, 2013
Additional Campus Affiliations
Associate Professor, History
Recent Publications
Chettiar, T. (2023). Counselling for connection: Making queer relationships during Britain's sexual revolution. Medical Humanities, 49(2), 182-192. https://doi.org/10.1136/medhum-2021-012347
Chettiar, T. (2023). The Intimate State: How Emotional Life Became Political in Welfare-State Britain. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190931209.001.0001
Chettiar, T. (2016). "More than a Contract": The emergence of a state-supported marriage welfare service and the politics of emotional life in Post-1945 Britain. Journal of British Studies, 55(3), 566-591. https://doi.org/10.1017/jbr.2016.55
Chettiar, T. (2015). Review: M. Thomson's Lost Freedom: The Landscape of the Child and the British Post-War Settlement. Journal of British Studies, 54(01), 246-247. https://doi.org/10.1017/jbr.2014.248
Chettiar, T. (2015). Treating marriage as "the sick entity": Gender, emotional life, and the psychology of marriage improvement in Postwar Britain. History of Psychology, 18(3), 270-282. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0039523