Meet the Faculty

Paul Gutjahr

  • Associate Professor, Department of English
  • Adjunct Associate Professor, Department of Religious Studies
  • Adjunct Associate Professor, Department of American Studies

Education

  • Ph.D. at University of Iowa, 1996

Contact Information

Ballentine Hall, Rm. 426
(812) 855-4137

Background

  • President's Arts and Humanities Initiative, Indiana University, 2002-2003
  • Outstanding Junior Faculty Award, College of Arts and Sciences, Indiana University, 2000-2001
  • Fellowship, Center for the Study of Religion, Princeton University, full academic year 1999-2000
  • Pew Program in Religion and American History Faculty Fellowship through Yale University, full academic year 1997-1998

Paul Gutjahr My own academic interests tend to be eclectic. My training is in American Studies, so I favor approaches which are highly interdisciplinary in nature. My specialized field of research is the history of publishing and literacy in the United States. More commonly, I work in the area which has come to be called history of the book studies, and I work primarily in the North American context. I am interested in how different forms of writing influence a vast array of cultural practices from religious preaching to proper etiquette at meals. I have written extensively on the production of the English Bible in America. I have also edited a collection of essays on typography and textual interpretation and an anthology on 19th century American popular literature. For more information about me, you can visit my personal homepage at: mypage.iu.edu/~pgutjahr/.

Research Interests

  • American literature and culture, 1640-1860
  • History of the book in America
  • American religious and intellectual thought
  • Religious publishing
  • Literacy studies

Courses Recently Taught

  • American Best Sellers, 1790-Present
  • Introduction to Fiction
  • Nineteenth-Century American Classics
  • American Detective Fiction
  • American Literature, 1800-1865
  • American Fiction to 1900
  • Studies in American Culture: American Dreams and Schemes
  • Children's Literature
  • English Literatures 1600-1800
  • Nineteenth-Century American Popular Literature
  • Melville, Moby-Dick and American Culture
  • The History of the Book in the United States

Publication Highlights

Books

An American Bible: A History of the Good Book in the United States, 1777-1880, Stanford University Press, 1999

Illuminating Letters: Essays on Typography and Literary Interpretation, co-edited with Megan Benton, University of Massachusetts Press, 2001

American Popular Literature of the Nineteenth Century, 1200-page anthology from Oxford University Press, 2001