Mattison Schuknecht

Professional Bio

Matt is a fourth-year PhD student who studies the literature of the English Renaissance. He is particularly interested in the work of Edmund Spenser, William Shakespeare, and John Milton, fictions of authorship & counter-authorship, interpretation & hermeneutics, intertextuality, poetics, reception, as well as the genres of epic and chivalric romance. Matt's current research project explores the character of Malvolio in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night as a counter-author figure. His interests beyond the early periods extend to high fantasy from the Victorian era to World War II, the Oxford Inklings (J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, and Charles Williams), science fiction, and possible-worlds theory & narratology. His work in these secondary fields has appeared in journals such as The Explicator and Mythlore; his book chapter on possible-worlds theory and utopian/dystopian literature recently appeared in the new volume (edited by Alice Bell and esteemed possible-worlds theorist Marie-Laure Ryan) Possible Worlds Theory and Contemporary Narratology (University of Nebraska Press, Frontiers of Narrative series). Matt served as treasurer, vice president, and president for Penn State's Early Period Studies Group in previous academic years. In terms of his teaching, Matt has previously taught ENGL 15, 5, 202B, and 202C at University Park and the World Campus. Last year, he taught CMLIT 191N (Introduction to Video Game Culture) in the Department of Comparative Literature.

Refereed Book Chapter:

"The Best/Worst of All Possible Worlds? Utopia, Dystopia, and Possible-Worlds Theory." Possible Worlds Theory and Contemporary Narratology, edited by Alice Bell and Marie-Laure Ryan, University of Nebraska Press (Frontiers of Narrative series), 2019, pp. 225-48.
http://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/university-of-nebraska-press/9780803294998/

Refereed Articles:

"Transubstantiations: Bread as Transformative Image in Graham Greene's THE HINT OF AN EXPLANATION." The Explicator, vol. 75, no. 1, 2017, pp. 13-15.
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00144940.2016.1273183

"C.S. Lewis's Debt to Dante: The Voyage of the 'Dawn Treader' and Purgatorio." Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature, vol. 34, no. 2, 2016, pp. 69-81. https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol34/iss2/5/