Dr. Knapp's Home Page: Bio Page

Dr. John V. Knapp is a professor of English, with a joint appointment in modern literature and in teacher training. He came to NIU in 1971 immediately after receiving his first Ph.D. -- in English -- from the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana where he was a T.A. in the Department of English as well as in the School of Education. His dissertation in modern British literature was entitled, "The Early Fiction of George Orwell."

Prof. Knapp took his B.S. and M.S. from the State University of New York, Cortland, in 1963 and 1966 respectively, and recently completed a second doctorate, in Educational Psychology, from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, in April of 2000. This dissertation was entitled, "Red-Eye Milton and the Loom of Learning: English Professor Expertise."

His research has included the disciplines of modern literatures, literary theory, contemporary psychology, and the teaching of literatures in English. Prof. Knapp has published over 40 articles and reviews in such periodicals as:

College English

Style

Modern Fiction Studies

English Journal

Mosaic

The Futurist

College Literature

J. of Adolescent and Adult Literacy

MLA Newsletter

He has also delivered more than 25 scholarly papers. In 1990, Knapp guest edited a special issue of Style entitled Literary Character, subsequently reprinted (1993) in book form by the University Press of America (UPA), Lanham, MD.

In June, 1996, UPA published Knapp's book entitled, Striking at the Joints: Contemporary Psychology and Literary Criticism, the culmination of twenty years of interdisciplinary research. This book details an interdisciplinary approach to several selected works of modern British and American literature from the perspective of contemporary cognitive, developmental-clinical, and personality psychology.

In spring 1998, Knapp published (as guest editor, with one of his former graduate students, Kenneth Womack) a special issue of Style (Summer 1997); (31.2) on Family Systems Psychotherapy and Literature. In addition to soliciting and editing the several essays in this issue (with Kenneth Womack), Knapp has also written a lengthy Introduction, presenting a relative new direction for literary critics.

In late 2002, Knapp and Womack's co-edited essay collection, Reading the Family Dance: Family Systems Psychotherapy and Literary Studies, will be published by the University of Delaware Press. This edition includes family systems-oriented essays on Shakespeare, Samul Richardson, C. Bronte, E.M. Forster, and many other British , North American and South American writers, as well as a lengthy Introduction to the collection by Knapp.

Knapp has served the academic community in a variety of ways. From 1985 to 1991, he was associate editor and co-editor of Style. Since 2001, Knapp has served on the editorial boards of Style and College Literature. Knapp has also reviewed manuscripts for the National Endowment for the Humanities as well as journals in two disciplines: American Educational Research Journal (AERA), Publication of the Modern Language Association (PMLA), Papers on Language and Literature, Style, Mosaic, and Modern Fiction Studies, and others. In 1973, Knapp helped analyze and write the first National Assessment of Educational Progress report on Writing Assessment. In 1980, he wrote an analysis of the progress of the Wisconsin Career Information Service, a vocational assessment tool for Wisconsin high school students. In 1984, Knapp directed an interdisciplinary conference on George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four with the help of grants from the Illinois Humanities Council and the NIU foundation.

From 1986 to 1989, he was a part-time research associate at the National Center for Effective Secondary School, University of Wisconsin-Madison, in the "Stratification Project," directed by Martin Nystrand (English) and Adam Gamoron (Sociology). This project was involved in assessing the influences of student ability grouping on pedagogical techniques in over 100 middle and high school classrooms in both Wisconsin and Illinois. Knapp published an essay in the Illinois English Bulletin (1991) on the implications of this research for teachers.

In addition to teaching courses in modern literatures and in teacher training, Knapp has also taught general linguistics, science fiction and espionage fiction, literary theory, and Introduction to Shakespeare. He has also taught in the NIU summer abroad programs--at St. Catharine's College, Cambridge, and at Oriel College, Oxford University. Knapp has directed doctoral dissertations and has served on several dissertation committees. In 1977, Knapp won a National Endowment for the Humanities Award to study literature and psychology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.