Alvin Snider

13 Pages·2015·0.18 MB·English

Alvin Snider
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308 EPB, University of Iowa
Iowa City, IA 52242-1492
319/335-0470 (o), 319/354-1356
[email protected]
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EDUCATIONAL AND PROFESSIONAL HISTORY

Education

1979-84 Ph.D., English, University of Chicago
1974-78 B.A., M.A., English, University of Toronto

Positions

1992- Associate Professor, University of Iowa (1992 to present)
1995 Visiting Professor, Université Paul Valéry, Montpellier III, France
1986-92 Assistant Professor, University of Iowa
1985-86 Assistant Professor, University of Toronto

SCHOLARSHIP

Publications

Book

Origin and Authority in Seventeenth-Century England: Bacon, Milton, Butler (University of
Toronto Press, 1994). (Pp. 163-82 reprinted in Literature Criticism [Gale,1998].)

Published Reviews of Scholarship

Book reviewed in MP, JEGP, Milton Studies, SEL, and elsewhere.

Articles and chapters (select)

“Milton,” The Year’s Work in English Studies, vol. 90 (Oxford UP, 2011): 529-42.
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“Hutchinson and the Lucretian Body,” The New Science and Women’s Literary Discourse, ed.
Judy A. Hayden (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), 29-46.

“Scientific ‘Revolution’ I: Copernicus to Boyle,” Routledge Companion to Literature and
Science, ed. Bruce Clark and Manuela Rossini (London: Routledge, 2010), 438-48.

“What Is an Editor?” Iowa Journal of Cultural Studies 12 (2010): 169-72.

“Milton,” The Year’s Work in English Studies, vol. 89 (Oxford UP, 2010): 10-25.

“Milton,” The Year’s Work in English Studies, vol. 88 (Oxford UP, 2009): 572-87.

“Hard Frost, 1684,” Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies 8 (2008): 8-32.

“Andrew Marvell,” The Year’s Work in English Studies, vol. 87 (Oxford UP, 2008): 573-78.

“Milton,” The Year’s Work in English Studies, vol. 85 (Oxford UP, 2006): 9-19.

“The Curious Impertinent on the Restoration Stage,” The Seventeenth Century 21 (2006): 315-
34.

“Aphra Behn,” Gran Enciclopedia Cervantina. Alcalá de Henares: Universidad Alcalá (2006).

“Atoms and Seeds: Aphra Behn’s Lucretius,” Clio 32 (2003): 1-24. (Reprinted in Poetry
Criticism, vol. 88 [Gale, 2008]).

“Seventeenth-Century Life Writing,” Encyclopedia of Life Writing (London, 2001).

“Cartesian Bodies,” MP 98 (2000): 299-319.

“Recent Studies in the English Renaissance,” SEL 39 (1999): 171-206.

“Nature Essay” and “Pamphlet” in Encyclopedia of the Essay (London, 1997).

“Bacon, Legitimation, and the ‘Origin’ of Restoration Science,” The Eighteenth Century: Theory
and Interpretation 32 (1991): 119-38.

“By Equivocation Swear: Hudibras and the Politics of Interpretation,” The Seventeenth Century
5 (1990): 157-72.

“A Babylonish Dialect: Samuel Butler’s Polemics of Discourse,” PQ 69 (1990): 299-316.

“Professing a Libertine in The Way of the World,” PLL 25 (1989): 376-97.

“Francis Bacon and the Authority of Aphorism,” Prose Studies 11 (1988): 60-71.
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“The Self-Mirroring Mind in Milton and Traherne,” UTQ 55 (1986): 313-27.

Reviews (select)

Review, Ends of Enlightenment (by John Bender) The Eighteenth Century: Theory and
Interpretation (forthcoming).

Review, Faithful Labourers: A Reception History of “Paradise Lost,” 1667-1970, 2 vols. (by
John Leonard) Style (forthcoming in 2015).

Review, English Translation and Classical Reception: Towards a New Literary History (by
Stuart Gillespie) MP (2014) http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/675900

Review, “I have always loved the Holy Tongue”: Isaac Casaubon, the Jews, and a Forgotten
Chapter in Renaissance Scholarship (by Anthony Grafton and Joanna Weinberg) Journal
of Modern History 84 (2012): 152-53.

Review, Rhetoric, Science, and Magic in Seventeenth-Century England (by Ryan J. Stark)
Renaissance Quarterly 63 (2010): 336-37.

Review, Brutal Reasoning: Animals, Rationality, and Humanity in Early Modern England (by
Erica Fudge) H-Net Reviews, January, 2008. URL: http://www.h-
net.org/reviews/showrev.cgi?path=312621203102069.

Review, Francis Bacon (by Nieves Mathews) Isis 88 (1997) 536-37.

Review, Climate and Literature (edited by Janet Pérez and Wendell Aycock) Criticism (1997)
277-80.

Review, Learning to Curse: Essays in Early Modern Culture (by Stephen Greenblatt), Medieval
& Renaissance Drama in England 7 (1994) 498-501.

Review, The Material Word: Literate Culture in the Restoration and Early Eighteenth Century
(by Richard Kroll), MP 91 (1994): 498-501.

Review, “The Muses Common-Weale”: Poetry and Politics in the Earlier Seventeenth Century
(edited by Claude Summers and Ted-Larry Pebworth), MP 88 (1991): 308-311.

Review, Restoration Comedy: Crises of Desire and Identity (by Edward Burns), Eighteenth-
Century Studies 23 (1990): 340-42.

Review, The Legitimacy of the Modern Age (by Hans Blumenberg), and Francis Bacon and
Modernity (by Charles Whitney), Minnesota Review 32 (1989): 137-40.
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International and National Presentations (select)

“Anne Conway’s Headaches and Spiritual Embodiment,” RSA, 2015

Milton Seminar, Newberry Library, Chicago, 2012

“Analogous Bodies in Lucretius, Hutchinson, and Milton,” RSA, 2012

“Unfolding the Fabric of the Human Body: Robert Herrick on Clothes,” Universitetet i Agder,
Norway, 2011

“The Properties of Cold: Northern Climates and Northern Humanism,” RSA, 2011

“Behn’s The Forced Marriage at Lincoln’s Inn Fields,” Universität Wien, 2010

“Northern Voyages and Robert Boyle’s Experiments upon Cold,” Northumbria University, 2010

“Milton and the Idea of North,” MLA Special Session, 2009

“Paradise Lost and Perpetual Winter,” Durham University, 2009

“Violence and Libertine Performance in Lincoln’s Inn Fields,” University of London, 2009

“The Pleasure of Tragicomedy: Aphra Behn in the 1670s,” ASECS, 2009

“The Virtuoso and Interspecies Transfusion,” Durham University, 2008

“Blood, Bloodlines, and National Identity,” SLSA, 2007

“Frozen Bodies: Northern Parts and English Voyages,” GEMCS, 2007

“Human Blood and Animal Bodies,” SLSA, 2006

“Lucy Hutchinson’s Order and Disorder,” University of Aberdeen, 2006

Panel on “The Future of Reading and the Study of Literature,” University of Houston, 2006

‘One Sovereign, One Religion, One Law, and One Language”: Margaret Cavendish on
Toleration,” Oxford University, 2006

“Prodigious Cold in Restoration London,” Kingston University, London, 2005

“Seeing Things: Mind and Body in Robert Boyle’s A Free Enquiry,” SLSA, 2005

“The Pleasure of Tragicomedy: Aphra Behn’s Early Plays,” Cambridge University, 2005
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“English Air and the Non-Naturals,” UNC, Chapel Hill, 2004

“Body and Soul in Lucy Hutchinson’s Poetry,” Duke University Medical Center, 2004

“Lucy Hutchinson and the Libertine Body,” RSSC, 2003

“Under the Weather: Bodies, Climate, and English Identity,” Durham, University 2003

“Lucy Hutchinson and Aphra Behn on the Nature of Things,” Durham University, 2001

“Possible Worlds and The Blazing World,” Margaret Cavendish Conference, 2001

“Disciplinarity in the Corporate University,” SLS, 2000

“Reviving the Scientific Revolution, Rewriting the Renaissance,” SLS, 1998

“Paradise Lost: Nature’s Dominion,” Università degli Studi di Torino, 1995

“‘Nature’s Journeymen’: Hamlet and the Cartesian Body,” Centre d’Etudes et de Recherches sur
la Renaissance Anglaise (C.N.R.S.), 1995

“Anthropomorphic Monsters: Nature, Mechanism, and the Cartesian Body,” Sixteenth-Century
Studies Conference, 1994

“The ‘Nature’ of Disciplinarity,” SLS, 1994

“Cultural Studies on Main Street: Unum e Pluribus,” GEMCS, 1993

“‘Access Denied’: Managing Paradise,” RSA, 1993

“‘Now Possess as Lords a Spacious World’: Dominion Over Nature in Paradise Lost,”
University of Sheffield, 1992

EXTERNAL AND INTERNAL GRANTS
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External Research Awards
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Year Award Agency
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1988 Fellowship Folger Shakespeare Library
1979-82 Special Humanities Fellowship, University of Chicago
1979-83 Doctoral Fellowship, SSHRC, Canada

Note. Internal research awards: University of Iowa Old Gold Summer Fellowship (1986),
MUCIA Travel Grants (1992, 1995, 2006).
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TEACHING
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Students Supervised
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Dissertation Committees

Name Project Role Outcome
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Brady M. Miltonic Space Chair Graduated
Burgess, C. Medieval literature Member April 2015
Casaregola, V. Humanist rhetoric and fiction Member Graduated
Cooley, J. Literature of Empire (Spanish) Member Graduated
Crockett, B. Shakespeare’s stage and preaching Member Graduated
Daigle, E. Early Modern Cognition Chair June 2009
Doty, J. Popularity and Politics Member Sept 2008
Dowdy, M. Elizabethan Outsiders Member August 2007
Fein, L. Book of Ruth (Religious Studies) Member April 2006
Gannon, T. Nature Poetry Member Graduated
Greder, D. Early Modern Ireland (Religious Studies) Member April 2015
Griffin, E. Anglo-Hispanic relations Member Graduated
Gubbels, K. Medieval and Renaissance Romance Member June 2010
Harp, G. Orality and Visuality Chair Graduated
Haydock, N. Chaucer and Chaucerians Member Graduated
Henry, E. Nonfiction Writing Member Graduated
Jacobsen, S. Economics and the novel Member Graduated
Jones, D. Familism (Religious Studies) Member April 2011
Kisting, W. Early Modern Casuistry Member July 2007
Lambert, J. Protestant Joy Chair June 2012
Larsen, Vickie. Julian of Norwich Member August 2009
McLeod, B. Empire and Space Member Graduated
Meidlinger, P Sidney’s Astrophel Chair Graduated
Metzger, M.J. Early modern drama Member Graduated
Mezey, J. Anglo-Indian fiction Member Graduated
Miele, B. Surveillance in the Renaissance Member April 2015
Moore, B. Censorship and the Novel Member Graduated
Nowka, S. Thinking Matter in the Novel Member April 2006
Ryan, P. Marlowe and Shakespeare Member Graduated
Schwartz, A. Creative Writing dissertation Member Graduated
Thompson, S. Shakespeare Member Graduated
Williams, A. 18th-Century Toleration Member April 2015
Yang, H. Landscape Poetry (Comp. Lit.) Member June 2010
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Comprehensive Ph.D Exams
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Bergin T. Charlotte Lennox 11
Brady, M. Miltonic Cosmologies 94
Clinton, A. English Renaissance 02
Coleman, J. Early Modern Religious Identity 08
Collins, D. Historical Renaissance 92
Crandall, T. Marxism and Critical Theory 92
Daigle, E. Early Modern Medicine 06
DeFries, B Reception of 17th-Century Poetry 15
Dietz, E. Semiology of Reform 94
Doty, J. Early Modern Drama and Politics 05
Dowdy, M. Renaissance Humanism and Scholarship 02
Gannon, T. The Eco-Other Speaks 00
Greder, D. Early modern Ireland (Religious Studies) 12
Griffin, E. Ethnography and Nation from Columbus to Ralegh 96
Gubbels, K. Monster Theory 08
Harp, G. Descartes’s Vision 98
Kisting, W. Renaissance Literature 04
Lambert, J. Early modern literature 09
Lane, C. English reformation (Religious Studies) 08
Lindroth, M. Milton and Performance 93
Linster, J Early Modern Anatomies 14
McLeod, B. Revolution, Restoration, British Expansion 92
McLoone, R 18th-Century Enlightenment 09
Metzger, M. Constructing Femininity in Early Modern England 89
Mezey, J. English Historiography 98
Miele, B. Renaissance Literature 12
Moncrief, K. New Historicism and Feminist Materialism 94
Morey, R. Ritual and the Shakespearean Stage 93
Nowka, S. Science and the 18th-century novel 03
Ryan, P. Marlowe’s Edward II 94
Shimizu, K. Natural law in Mary Wollstonecraft 94
Smith, D. Restoration Theatre 92
Smolinsky, M. Renaissance Historicism 99
Stavreva, K. Early Modern Period 93
Struyk, K. Canadian Women Novelists (MAT) 93
Williams, A. Literature of Toleration 11
Yang, H. Mary Wroth (Comp. Lit.) 08

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CONTRIBUTIONS TO ENGLISH INSTRUCTIONAL PROGRAM
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British and North American Nature Writing
Creative Writing Track: Epic Transformations
Early Modern Comedy
English Pastoral
Epic and Mock Epic (from Virgil to Pope)
Epic and Tragic Literature
Forms of Nonfiction: Writing about Music
Graduate: 16th- and 17th-Century English Nonfiction Prose
Graduate: 16th- and 17th-Century Authors: Milton
Graduate: Issues in 17th-Century Literature
Graduate: Language and Politics in the English Revolution
Graduate: Paradise Lost: Theory, Text, History
Graduate: Restoration Literature
Graduate: The Invention of Nature, 1580-1700
Graduate: What Was New Historicism?
Literature and Culture of the 17th Century
Literature and Culture of the 18th Century
Literature and Culture of the Renaissance
Literature and Philosophic Thought
Literature and Society: The Two Cultures
Milton
Modern Criticism
Nonfiction Writing: From Text to Film
Nonfiction Writing: Writing about Music
Politics of English Poetry: Spenser, Jonson, Marvell, Dryden
Proseminar: All about Paradise Lost
Proseminar: Music and Nonfiction Writing
Proseminar: Politics of English Poetry
Reading Criticism
Selected Authors: Milton and Aphra Behn
Selected Authors: Jonson and Herrick
Selected Works of the Eighteenth Century
Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Poetry
Shakespeare
Tragic and Comic Literature

SERVICE

Department and College

2014- Director of Graduate Studies, Associate Chair
2009-10 Undergraduate Advising
2013-14 Director, Qualifications
1994, 03, Executive Committee
2014-
1996-99 MA Program Director
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1990-05, Graduate Program Steering
2013-
1990-01 Graduate Financial Aid
1989-09 Faculty Searches
Early Modern (chair 1993, 1999, 2004, 2007, 2008)
Medieval (1992, 1998, 2004)
19th-century British (1989)
Cultural Studies (2003)
2003 Placement
2005- Foreign Exchange Coordinator
2007-10 Newberry Library Consortium Committee
1997-2009 Representative to Faculty Assembly
1994- Assistant Professor review (chair 1994, 2001, 2013, 2015)
1994- Tenure and Promotion (Theory, Early Modern, Medieval, Shakespeare)
1993-2007 Graduate Admissions (chair 1999)
1993 Committee to review Department of French and Italian
1989 Teaching Adviser, General Education
1988-89 Undergraduate Honors Program
1987-88, Curriculum Committee
2014-
1986-87 MA Examination Committee

University
Faculty Senate (2002-03)
Review committee, Director of UI Libraries (2010-11)

Profession

Editor of PQ (2007-13)

External reviewer:
Fordham University, 2009; City College of New York, 2004

Referee/reader for Routledge, Prentice-Hall, Broadview Press, Annals of Scholarship,
Configurations, Isis, JEMCS, M/MLA, MP, Prose Studies, The Eighteenth Century: Theory and
Interpretation

Journalism in the Chronicle of Higher Education

Current Memberships: RSA; SLSA; MLA
Semester and Courses Taught Students
Year Number and Title Enrolled Selected Comments

Fall 2008 8:100: Literature and Culture 25 He was enthusiastic.
of the 17th Century

S pr 2009 8 :147 Shakespeare 25 O pen minded to our
interpretations, but kept
discussion pointed with
interesting discussion
material.
8:220 Nonfiction Prose 11 I found the
juxtaposition of big,
theoretical/
methodological
questions with the time
spent collectively close
reading a passage quite
effective.
Fall 2009 8:219: 16th- and 17th-Century 11 I found individual
Authors instruction (comments
on work, one-on-one
meetings) to be
excellent, very
perceptive, empathetic
and supportive.
S pr 2010 8 :122: 16th and 17th-Century 30 A lways fair and
Poetry understands different
levels of knowledge
and interest. Also very
knowledgeable about
the material.