Jessica Schnepp, Ph.D.

Dr. Jessica Schnepp is Assistant Professor of Literature at Ave Maria University. She is also the faculty advisor for the Art Club and Flannery O’Connor Literature Club and Senior Nonfiction Editor for Magnify, Ave Maria’s journal for student creative arts. Dr. Schnepp holds a Ph.D. in English and Certificate in Rhetoric and Writing from the Catholic University of America, an M.A. in English from SUNY Stony Brook, and a B.A. in English from the University of Dallas. Before coming to Ave, Dr. Schnepp served as Visiting Faculty in the Master of Fine Arts program at the University of St. Thomas, Houston. She has also worked for the National Endowment for the Humanities, in Catholic classical K-12 education, and in poetry and nonfiction editing.

Dr. Schnepp’s research is focused on theological aesthetics, narratology, and twentieth-century American and British fiction, especially by Catholic writers such as Flannery O’Connor and Evelyn Waugh. Her work has been published in English Studies and she regularly presents her research at scholarly conferences, including the American Literature Association, the Association of Literary Scholars, Critics, and Writers (ALSCW), the De Nicola Conference on Ethics and Culture, and the International Flannery O’Connor Conference. Her creative work and writing for the general public has been published or is forthcoming in America, Literary Matters, Presence: A Journal of Catholic Poetry, and the St. Austin Review.

Dr. Schnepp enjoys teaching a wide variety of literature and writing courses at Ave, from the Rhetoric and Poetics freshman sequence to upper-level electives in creative writing and the modern Catholic novel. She also leads online seminars for the general public. These include free online seminars on Great Books through the Catherine Project and on literature, popular culture, and the Catholic imagination through Loyola Chicago’s Hank Center for the Catholic Intellectual Heritage.