Benjamin Schreier (born 1972) is an American literary scholar, critic, and academic administrator whose work has reshaped the study of Jewish American literature, ethnic studies, and identity in contemporary literary criticism. He is the Mitrani Family Professor of Jewish Studies and Professor of English and Jewish Studies at Penn State University, where he has also served as Director of the Graduate Program in English and previously directed the university’s Jewish Studies Program. Since 2011, he has been editor of *Studies in American Jewish Literature*, one of the leading journals in the field.
Schreier is best known for challenging conventional assumptions about Jewish identity and Jewish American literary culture. Rather than treating Jewishness as a stable cultural or ethnic essence, he examines how identities are constructed, institutionalized, and maintained through literary criticism, academic disciplines, cultural organizations, and broader intellectual traditions. His scholarship stands at the intersection of literary theory, cultural studies, intellectual history, and ethnic studies.
Born in the United States, Schreier earned a B.A. in English and Philosophy with High Honors from Swarthmore College in 1994. He completed his Ph.D. in English and American Literature at Brandeis University in 2003. His academic formation combined traditional literary study with the theoretical approaches that transformed the humanities during the late twentieth century, including post-structuralism, cultural studies, and critical theories of identity and representation.
His first major book, *The Power of Negative Thinking: Cynicism and the History of Modern American Literature* (2009), examined the role of cynicism in American intellectual and literary life. The book explored how skeptical and oppositional forms of thought shaped modern American literature, revealing an early interest in the tensions between identity, critique, and cultural authority that would later become central themes in his scholarship.
Schreier gained wider recognition with *The Impossible Jew: Identity and the Reconstruction of Jewish American Literary History* (2015). In that work, he challenged the assumption that Jewish American literature naturally expresses a coherent Jewish communal identity. Instead, he argued that “Jewish American literature” is itself a critical and institutional construction, produced through the practices of scholars, critics, publishers, and educators. The book became an important intervention in debates about ethnicity, canon formation, and identity politics, helping to redefine the field’s intellectual foundations.
He extended these arguments in *The Rise and Fall of Jewish American Literature: Ethnic Studies and the Challenge of Identity* (2020), a cultural and intellectual history of Jewish American literary studies itself. The book traces how the field emerged during the twentieth century and examines the institutional forces that shaped its development. Schreier argues that categories such as “Jewish American literature” are not simply descriptive labels but products of specific historical, political, and academic circumstances. The work challenges scholars to reconsider whether traditional identity-based frameworks remain adequate for understanding literature in an increasingly complex and interconnected cultural landscape. Together, *The Impossible Jew* and *The Rise and Fall of Jewish American Literature* form a sustained critique of essentialist approaches to ethnicity and identity within literary studies.
Beyond his monographs, Schreier has contributed to a wide range of scholarly conversations through edited collections, essays, and journal editing. His edited works include *Studies in Irreversibility: Texts and Contexts* (2007) and, with Jonathan Eburne, *The Year’s Work in Nerds, Wonks, and Neocons* (2017). These projects demonstrate intellectual interests extending beyond Jewish studies into broader questions of contemporary intellectual culture, politics, and critical theory.
As editor of *Studies in American Jewish Literature*, Schreier has encouraged the field to engage more directly with debates in ethnic studies, cultural studies, secularism, political theory, postcolonial scholarship, and critical identity studies. His editorial leadership has helped position the journal as a venue for interdisciplinary scholarship that examines Jewish culture within larger social, political, and theoretical contexts.
At Penn State, Schreier teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on Jewish American literature, American literature, ethnic literature, American comedy, modernism, post-Holocaust literature, Jewish American film, contemporary political fiction, and the intellectual history of the New York intellectuals. His teaching emphasizes close reading, theoretical self-awareness, and critical reflection on the categories through which literature is interpreted and valued.
A recurring theme throughout Schreier’s work is the relationship between literary criticism and institutional power. He argues that scholars must not only analyze texts but also examine the assumptions and structures that govern their own methods of interpretation. This commitment to reflexive criticism distinguishes his scholarship from more traditional forms of literary history and places him among a generation of scholars who seek to rethink the foundations of ethnic and minority literary studies.
In recent years, Schreier has expanded his research interests beyond Jewish American literature to include Arab American literature and broader questions of transnational identity formation. This work continues his long-standing concern with how cultural categories emerge, evolve, and acquire authority within academic and public discourse.
