Jonathan Kramnick

Jonathan Kramnick is the Maynard Mack Professor of English and Director of Graduate Studies at Yale University, where he also directs the Lewis Walpole Library and co-edits the Lewis Walpole Series in Eighteenth-Century Culture and History. He holds a Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University (1995) and a B.A. from Cornell University (1989). His research focuses on eighteenth-century literature and philosophy, literary theory, and interdisciplinary approaches to the arts. Recent work includes Criticism and Truth: On Method in Literary Studies (2023), which defends close reading methodologies, and Paper Minds: Literature and the Ecology of Consciousness (2018), shortlisted for the Christian Gauss Award. Current projects include a book on Alexander Pope and William Cowper’s poetics of designed environments (Earthworks: Two Before Romanticism).

His scholarship bridges literary analysis with philosophy, cognitive science, and environmental studies. Key themes include consciousness studies, the role of form in literary knowledge, and the intersections between literature and scientific inquiry. He frequently writes on professional issues in literary studies for venues like The Chronicle of Higher Education, addressing topics such as academic labor markets and humanities relevance amid crises like the pandemic.

• Education: Ph.D., Johns Hopkins University (1995); B.A., Cornell University (1989)
• Roles: Director of Lewis Walpole Library, Co-editor of Lewis Walpole Series
• Key Awards: Christian Gauss Award nominee (2018)

His teaching spans courses like Politics, Philosophy, and Ecology in Eighteenth-Century English Literature and Literature and Philosophy in the Eighteenth Century. He has advised numerous graduate students through his directorship of Yale’s English Department graduate program.