James E. Miller Jr. (1920–2010) was an American scholar and the Helen A. Regenstein Professor Emeritus of English Language and Literature at the University of Chicago, where he completed his graduate work, taught, and served as chairman of the English department.
Specializing in American literature, he published over twenty books[2] and various articles on authors such as T. S. Eliot, Herman Melville, and Walt Whitman.
His books include T. S. Eliot’s Personal Wasteland: Exorcism of the Demons, T. S. Eliot: The Making of an American Poet, The American Quest for a Supreme Fiction: Whitman’s Legacy in the Personal Epic, Leaves of Grass: America’s Lyric-Epic of Self and Democracy, F. Scott Fitzgerald: His Art and His Technique, Theory of Fiction: Henry James, and Quests Surd and Absurd: Essays in American Literature.
Miller also contends that though Eliot lived in England much of his life, he remained quintessentially an American writer.
Throughout his career, Miller traveled and taught extensively in Japan, Australia, France, Italy, and elsewhere.