Dr. Peter Schakel started teaching at Hope in 1969. Since 1984 he was been the Peter C. and Emajean Cook Professor of English. He served as department chair for 20 years (1981–87, 1994–2005, 2011–2015). He is the author, with Jack Ridl, of a textbook, Approaching Literature, in its fourth edition (published by Bedford/St. Martin’s Press in 2017). 

AREAS OF Expertise

Dr. Schakel’s area of scholarly specialization is British Literature 1660–1745, focusing particularly on the life and works of Jonathan Swift and of Jane Austen. He also has an interest in the life and works of C. S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. He and a colleague, Jack Ridl, have co-authored several literature textbooks.

EDUCATION

• Ph.D., English, 1969, University of Wisconsin-Madison
• M.A., English, 1964, Southern Illinois University
• B.A., English, 1963, Central College

HONORS, GRANTS & AWARDS

• Hope Outstanding Professor Educator Award, Hope College, 2013
• The Provost’s Award for Service to the Academic Program, Hope College, 2013
• The Ruth and John Reed Faculty Achievement Award, Hope College, 2004
• The Clyde S. Kilby Research Grant, from the Marion E. Wade Center, Wheaton College, 2002
• NEH Summer Seminar, the Aston Magna Academy, on “The Culture of Early Georgian England (1714–1760),” Yale University, 1997
• NEH Summer Seminar, the Aston Magna Academy, on “The Culture of Restoration England, 1660–1720, Rutgers University, 1987
• Mythopoeic Society’s Scholarship Award, 1984, 1992, 1996
• American Council of Learned Societies Travel Grant to the First Münster Symposium on Jonathan Swift, Münster, Federal Republic of Germany, 1984
• NEH Summer Seminar, on the History of Moral Philosophy, Wellesley College, 1981
• National Endowment for the Humanities year-long Fellowship for College Teachers at The University of Virginia, 1979–80
• American Philosophical Society Grants, for sabbatical travel expenses, 1976, 1983
• Newberry Library Fellowship, Chicago, 1975
• William Andrews Clark Memorial Library Fellow, Los Angeles, 1974

PUBLISHED WORK

• Is Your Lord Large Enough? How C. S. Lewis Expands Our View of God, InterVarsity Press, 2008
• The Way into Narnia: A Reader’s Guide, Eerdmans, 2005
• Approaching Literature in the 21st Century: Fiction, Poetry, Drama, with Jack Ridl, Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2005; 2nd edition, titled Approaching Literature: Writing + Reading + Thinking, 2008; 3rd edition, titled Approaching Literature: Reading + Thinking + Writing, 2012
• Literature: A Portable Anthology, with Beverly Lawn, Jack Ridl and Janet E. Gardner, Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2004; 2nd edition, 2009; 3rd edition, 2013
• 250 Poems: A Portable Anthology, with Jack Ridl, Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2003; 2nd edition, 2009; 3rd edition, 2014
• Imagination and the Arts in C. S. Lewis, University of Missouri Press, 2002
• Eighteenth-Century Contexts: Historical Inquiries in Honor of Phillip Harth, ed., with Howard D. Weinbrot and Stephen Karian, University of Wisconsin Press, 2001
• Approaching Poetry: Perspectives and Responses, with Jack Ridl, St. Martin’s Press, 1997
• The Rhetoric of Vision: Essays on Charles Williams, ed., with Charles A. Huttar, Bucknell University Press, 1996
• Critical Approaches to Teaching Swift, ed., AMS Press, 1992
• Word and Story in C. S. Lewis, ed., with Charles A. Huttar, University of Missouri Press, 1991
• Reason and Imagination in C. S. Lewis: A Study of “Till We Have Faces,” Eerdmans, 1984
• Reading with the Heart: The Way into [C. S. Lewis’s] Narnia, Eerdmans, 1979
• The Poetry of Jonathan Swift: Allusion and the Development of a Poetic Style, University of Wisconsin Press, 1978
• The Longing for a Form: Essays on the Fiction of C. S. Lewis, ed., Kent State University Press, 1977; paperback edition, Baker Book House, 1979

View all of Dr. Peter Schakel’s published work in Digital Commons.