Ryan Schneider
- Associate Professor // English
- Associate Professor // SIS
- Affiliated Faculty // American Studies // SIS
Research Focus
19th-century American Literature; Transcendentalism; African American literature; Public Intellectuals and Intellectual History
Office and Contact
Ph.D., Duke University, 1998
Biography
Ryan Schneider holds an A.B. magna cum laude, in History and Literature from Harvard University as well as an M.A. and a Ph.D. in English from Duke. He specializes in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century American and African American literature with particular emphasis on Transcendentalism, Critical Race Theory, and intellectual history.
His book, The Public Intellectualism of Ralph Waldo Emerson and W.E.B. Du Bois: Emotional Dimensions of Race and Reform, was published by Palgrave Macmillan as part of their Cognitive Studies in Literature and Performance series. Professor Schneider’s articles have appeared in American Transcendental Quarterly, Arizona Quarterly, and edited collections including No More Separate Spheres!: A Next Wave American Studies Reader, (Duke University Press), and Boys Don’t Cry?: Rethinking Narratives of Masculinity and Emotion in the U.S., (Columbia University Press). He also has contributed essays to The Oxford Companion to Women's Writing in the United States and W.E.B. Du Bois: An Encyclopedia.
Professor Schneider has received numerous internal research awards from Purdue along with external fellowships from the American Antiquarian Society and the National Endowment for the Humanities. He currently is completing a book on cognitive approaches to racial difference in African American speculative fiction. His next research project examines evolving representations and interpretations of Henry David Thoreau’s Walden in literature and popular culture.
He is a long-time member of the Editorial Board of San Diego State University Press and a founding member of the Cancer, Culture, and Community Program (CCC) at Purdue: a joint venture involving the College of Liberal Arts and the Oncological Sciences Center in Discovery Park that explores the human response to cancer as expressed through art and literature.
Professor Schneider teaches a wide range of courses in American literature and has received over 30 teaching awards at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, including the Outstanding Graduate Teaching Award for the College of Liberal Arts and the English Department Overall Excellence in Teaching Award. He is a two-time recipient of the Center for Undergraduate Instructional Excellence Fellowship.
His administrative experience includes 6 years as Director of Graduate Studies and 1 year as interim Director of the Literature, Theory, and Cultural Studies Program.