Meredith Neuman

Associate Professor, English

Professor Neuman teaches and researches in the fields of early American literature and book history. In Jeremiah’s Scribes: Creating Sermon Literature in Puritan New England (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013), she delves into the world of sermon notetaking, shifting attention from pulpit to pew, demonstrating how sermon auditors helped shape this dominant genre of Puritan literature. Professor Neuman’s research centers print and manuscript archival sources — ranging from notebooks kept by Puritans when they were listening to sermons, to amateur manuscript poetry, to readers’ marks in print books, to the history and context of the Mather family’s vast personal library. Hands-on workshops with materials at the American Antiquarian Society and Clark University’s Special Collections are a common feature of her seminars, and she encourgages her students to explore opportunities for original research in the archives at the AAS. Professor Neuman’s teaching interests include American literature through the Civil War, 17th-century transatlantic literature, early American print culture, and poetry.

Degrees

  • Ph.D. in English, University of California, Los Angeles, 2004
  • B.A. in Classical Languages and Literature, University of Chicago, 1989

Affiliated Department

English

Scholarly and creative works

  • Presentations

    “Book Copies and Textual Desire: Reading Early American Poetry Against the Imprint” (Sarah Robins, Tufts University, respondent), American Literature and Culture Seminar Series, Mahindra Humanities Center, Harvard University

    February
    2023
    Meredith Neuman
  • Chapters In Books

    A History of American Puritan Literature
    Chapter: Manuscript Culture

    Published by Cambridge University Press
    2020
    Meredith Neuman
  • Other Scholarly or Creative Work

    Manuscript Cultures in Seventeenth-Century New England

    Meredith Neuman, Ashley Cataldo
  • Other Scholarly or Creative Work

    Widows and Orphans; or, Loss and Longing in the Archive

    Meredith Neuman
  • Chapters In Books

    US Popular Print Culture to 1860, eds. Ronald J Zboray and Mary Saracino Zboray
    Chapter: “Manuscript Culture & Print”

    Published by Oxford Univesity Press
    2019
    Meredith Neuman
  • Chapters In Books

    Stories of Nation: Fictions, Politics, and the American Experience, eds. Martin Griffin and Christopher Herbert.
    Chapter: “Failures of Consensus: Contesting Election Sermons in Puritan New England”

    Published by University of Tennessee Press
    2017
    Meredith Neuman
  • Book

    Jeremiah’s Scribes: Creating Sermon Literature in Puritan New England

    Material Texts
    2013
    Philadephia PA
    Meredith Neuman
  • Article in Refereed Journal

    “The Versified Lives of Unknown Puritans”

    Published in The Papers of the Bibliographic Society of America
    2013
    Vol. 107
    Issue #3
    Meredith Neuman
  • Article in Refereed Journal

    “Beyond Narrative: John Dane’s A Declaration of Remarkable Providences

    Published in Early American Literature
    2005
    Vol. 40
    Issue #2
    Meredith Neuman