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Benjamin Schreier

Benjamin Schreier

Mitrani Family Professor of Jewish Studies
Professor of English and Jewish Studies
Editor, /Studies in American Jewish Literature/
(814) 863-1724
417 Burrowes Building
Mailroom: 430 Burrowes Building

Mailroom: 430 Burrowes Building

Benjamin Schreier

Spring 2024 Office Hours

Tuesdays 11:00-2:00 and by appointment

Curriculum Vitae

Education

BA with High Honors, Swarthmore College, English and Philosophy, 1994
PhD, Brandeis University, English, 2003

Professional Bio

My work is anchored in post-1900 American literature and critical theory, and the major focus of my research is an analysis of identity and intellectuality in literature and literary scholarship. I specialize in Jewish American literature and culture, though I have recently begun a project on Arab American literature. I am dedicated to close reading and am ardent in my belief that literary critics need to theorize our reading practices.

My most recent book is The Rise and Fall of Jewish American Literature: Ethnic Studies and the Challenge of Identity (Penn Press, 2020). I am also the author of The Impossible Jew: Identity and the Reconstruction of Jewish American Literature (NYU Press, 2015) and The Power of Negative Thinking: Cynicism and the History of Modern American Literature (UVA Press, 2009). And I am the editor of Studies in Irreversibility: Texts and Contexts (2007) and the co-editor with Jonathan Eburne of The Year's Work in Nerds, Wonks, and Neocons (2017).

I regularly teach undergraduate courses on American literature, Jewish American literature, ethnic literature, and American comedy. At the graduate level, I've recently taught seminars in Contemporary Political Novels, American Modernism, Jewish American Literature, The New York Intellectuals and Intellectual Theory, and the 20th century American Novel.

Since 2012 I have been the editor of the journal Studies in American Jewish Literature.

Areas of Specialization

American Literature After 1900

Post-1900 American literature and culture; Jewish American literature and culture; Arab American Literature; Ethnic literature; Intellectuals and culture; Literary history

Contemporary Literature

Post-1900 American literature and culture; Jewish American literature and culture; Ethnic literature; Cold War and post-Cold War culture; Intellectuals and culture; Arab American Literature

Modernist Studies

Post-1900 American literature and culture; New York Intellectuals; Cold War culture; Habits of thought and recognition; Literary history

Race and Ethnicity Studies

Jewish and Jewish American literature and culture; Theory of identity and identification; Arab American Literature; New York Intellectuals; National and nationalist discourse; Metropolitanism and Cosmopolitanism; Habits of thought and recognition; Aesthetics

Theory and Cultural Studies

Theory of identity and identification; Critique of historicism; Statism; National and nationalist discourse; Modernism and postmodernism; Habits of thought and recognition; Literary history and literary critical orthodoxies; Intellectuals; Philosophy and literature; Aesthetics