Samuel Diener

Dr. Samuel Diener serves as a Fellow and Tutor in English at Jesus College, University of Cambridge. His academic appointment places him within the Faculty of English and Department of English, where he specializes in early modern and eighteenth-century literature, culture, and the history of the book. His work spans the Anglophone world with comparative analysis in Portuguese and Spanish contexts.

Dr. Diener's research examines the practices of reading, writing, and commodity consumption through which people imagined their identities from the early colonial period through Romanticism. His academic interests include maritime humanities, new materialist theory, history of the book, poetry and poetics, history of the novel, and studies of race, ethnicity, gender, and sexual identity. His work demonstrates a strong interdisciplinary approach, bridging literary studies with historical, cultural, and theoretical frameworks.

His publications reveal a consistent focus on how literature engages with geographical and imperial contexts, particularly through digital humanities approaches. His July 2019 article in Women Writers in Context examines Eliza Haywood's work through digital tools to trace Anglophone women writers' engagement with global geographies. His January 2019 article in Eighteenth Century Fiction explores affect and emotional practices in early merchant-capitalist societies through material culture. His current book project, The Maritime Travel Book and the Collective Imagination, considers maritime exploration narratives from the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries.

Dr. Diener has received significant recognition for his scholarly work, including the American Council of Learned Societies / Mellon Foundation Dissertation Fellowship and the Harvard University Bowdoin Prize. These awards reflect the high quality and innovative nature of his research at the intersection of literary studies, history, and digital humanities.

Before joining Jesus College, Dr. Diener taught in the Harvard Writing Program and served as an adjunct professor of English at Emmanuel College, Boston. His educational background includes an AA from Shasta College, a BA from the University of California, Berkeley, and AM and PhD degrees from Harvard University, where he completed his doctorate in English and Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality in 2022.

Beyond his academic work, Dr. Diener is developing a book of poetry inspired by his earlier experiences in the fishing and foodservice industries. His personal interests in cooking and travel reflect the maritime and cultural themes that inform his scholarly work.