Search People Result | Academic Influence

Find the most influential people in 24 academic disciplines and numerous subdisciplines

Find famous and important people related to your research. This is an excellent tool for research papers, topic papers, and building a bibliography. Using our influence-based algorithm, our rankings synthesize data from Wikipedia, Wikidata, Semantic Scholar, and CrossRef.

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School

Gender

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Discipline

Subdiscipline

Ranking

List of the most influential people in Literature,

#7001

Jen McClanaghan

#181372

Overall Influence

Jen McClanaghan is an American poet. She won the 2009 Review Prize. McClanaghan grew up in New Canaan, Connecticut and earned her bachelor's degree from Antioch College. She earned her MFA from Columbia University in 2004 and her PhD from Florida State University in 2009. Since 2005 she has published over thirty poems, some of which have been published in the Review, the New England Review, and the Review, among others. Her manuscript, The Cairo Letters, was a finalist for The National Poetry Series, Saturnalia Books, Autumn House Press, and The Dorset Prize.

#7002

Edward Snow

#137871

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

Edward A. Snow is an American poet and translator. Life He graduated from Rice University, University of California, Riverside, and State University of New York at Buffalo, in 1969 with a Ph.D. He is a professor of English at Rice University, and lives in Houston, Texas.

#7003

Sarah Cole

#189715

Overall Influence

Sarah Cole is a U.S. writer and academic administrator specializing in British literature from the 19th and 20th centuries. She is the incoming interim dean of the Columbia University School of the Arts. Cole is a Parr Professor of English and Comparative Literature and Dean of Humanities in the Columbia University faculty of arts and sciences.

#7004

Caroline Maun

#181077

Overall Influence

1968 - Present (58 years)

Caroline C. Maun is a professor, author, poet, lyricist, and musician. She teaches creative writing in the English Department at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. Other areas of research include modernism, American Literature, African-American literature, and Internet Writing.

#7005

Zethu Matebeni

#186258

Overall Influence

1978 - Present (48 years)

Zethu Matebeni is a sociologist, activist, writer, documentary film maker, Professor and South Africa Research Chair in Sexualities, Genders and Queer Studies at the University of Fort Hare. She has held positions at the University of the Western Cape and has been senior researcher at the Institute for Humanities in Africa at UCT. She has been a visiting Professor Yale University and has received a number of research fellowships including those from African Humanities Program, Ford Foundation, the Fogarty International Centre and the National Research Foundation.

#7006

Renate Simson

#187538

Overall Influence

1934 - 2017 (83 years)

Renate "Rennie" Marie Simson was an American author and professor of African-American literature and writing. Her work has been influential in African American literature and identity studies. She wrote an essay on Black women's sexuality and identity, The Afro-American Female: The Historical Context of the Construction of Sexual Identity.

#7007

Richard Thomas

#185823

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (62 years)

Richard Thomas is a British musician, writer, and comedy actor. He is best known for composing, writing and scoring the award-winning Jerry Springer: The Opera with book and additional lyrics co-written with Stewart Lee. Thomas collected the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Musical Score in 2004.

#7008

Patrick Barron

#190517

Overall Influence

1968 - Present (58 years)

#7009

Gabriella Gutiérrez y Muhs

#176189

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (67 years)

Gabriella Gutiérrez y Muhs is a full professor of Modern Languages and Cultures, and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the Seattle University. She is the current Theiline Pigott-McCone Chair at Seattle University. She was a commissioner for the Washington State Arts Commission from 2014 to 2017.

#7010

Ed Luce

#186585

Overall Influence

Ed Luce is an American cartoonist, best known for his indie comics series Wuvable Oaf. The series focuses on Oaf Jadwiga, a bearish gay ex-wrestler looking for love. Originally funded by a grant from Prism Comics, it was self-published in five standalone chapters until being compiled in graphic novel form by Fantagraphics Books in 2015.

#7011

Leslie Jacobson

#185125

Overall Influence

Leslie Bravman Jacobson is a George Washington University professor emeritus of theatre, playwright, director, and the founding artistic director of the longest-running women's theatre in the United States, Horizons: Theatre from a Woman's Perspective in Washington, D.C. She was also a founder and vice president of the 501 not-for-profit Bokamoso Youth Foundation, president of the League of Washington Theatres, and recipient of a Fulbright Senior Research Fellowship.

#7012

Robert Deam Tobin

#181660

Overall Influence

1961 - 2022 (61 years)

Robert Deam Tobin was the Henry J Leir Chair in Literature, Language and Culture at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts from 2008 to 2022. He was a leading scholar of German and European literature, culture, and sexuality studies. Tobin died of cancer in August 2022.

#7013

Milena Jelinek

#167579

Overall Influence

1935 - 2020 (85 years)

Milena Jelinek was a Czech American screenwriter, playwright and teacher. She wrote the screenplay for the film Forgotten Light, which was awarded three Czech Lions in 1997. Her name is associated with the golden generation of Czech filmmakers, known as Czech New Wave. She was married to the late researcher Frederick Jelinek.

#7014

Paul Quarrington

Paul Quarrington

#185182

Overall Influence

1953 - 2010 (57 years)

Paul Lewis Quarrington was a Canadian novelist, playwright, screenwriter, filmmaker, musician and educator. Background Born in Toronto as the middle of three sons in the family of four of Bruce Quarrington, he was raised in the district of Don Mills and studied at the University of Toronto but dropped out after less than two years of study.

#7015

Carme Solé Vendrell

Carme Solé Vendrell

#133517

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (81 years)

Carme Solé Vendrell is a Spanish illustrator and writer, mainly of children's books. Since 1968, she has illustrated more than a hundred books. She has also worked on television series such as Víctor y María. She was a Premi Nacional de Cultura laureate in 1979 and 2012.

#7016

Nicolás Kanellos

#190459

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (81 years)

Nicolás Kanellos is founder and director of Arte Público Press, the oldest and largest Hispanic publishing house, as well as Revista Chicana-Riqueña, the first Hispanic literary magazine which later became The Amerícas Review. He is the Brown Foundation professor of Hispanic studies at the University of Houston.

#7017

Jesús Sanoja Hernández

#190574

Overall Influence

1930 - 2007 (77 years)

Jesús Sanoja Hernández , was a Venezuelan journalist, historian and writer, who authored Entre golpes y revoluciones . Works Entre golpes y revoluciones . External links Review about Sanoja Hernández at Correodelcaroni.com

#7018

Alicia Alonso

#147963

Overall Influence

1920 - 2019 (99 years)

Alicia Alonso was a Cuban prima ballerina assoluta and choreographer whose company became the Ballet Nacional de Cuba in 1955. She is best known for her portrayals of Giselle and the ballet version of Carmen.

#7019

L. B. McGinnis

#160507

Overall Influence

1941 - 2014 (73 years)

Larry Bruce McGinnis , also known as L. B. McGinnis and Bruce McGinnis, was an American writer, poet, and college professor. He was a professor of English at Amarillo College for 37 years. McGinnis was the author of four novels: The Fence , Sweet Cane , Reflections in Dark Glass: The Life and Times of John Wesley Hardin , and Dog Dreams ; and a non-fiction book about a saddle maker, Schweitzer.

#7020

Jane Ward

#39989

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

Jane Ward is an American scholar, feminist, and author. Life Ward is Professor and Chair of Feminist Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Ward received her PhD in sociology from the University of California Santa Barbara in 2003.

#7021

John Furia Jr.

#184151

Overall Influence

1929 - 2009 (80 years)

John Furia Jr. was an American television writer, whose credits included Bonanza, Hotel , Hawaii Five-O, The Twilight Zone, Kung Fu, The Waltons and Dr. Kildare. Furia graduated from Fordham University with a degree in Constitutional history. Then he started writing for Playhouse 90, the DuPont Show of the Month, and Climax! After moving to California, he became a freelance writer for TV and movies, and also worked in production. Besides the aforementioned shows, he wrote for The Alcoa Hour, Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre, and Espionage. One of his most successful screenplays was The Singing Nun.

#7022

Bruce Hart

#187174

Overall Influence

1938 - 2006 (68 years)

Bruce Hart was an American songwriter and screenwriter perhaps best known for composing the lyrics to the theme song to the children's TV series Sesame Street. Biography Hart was born in New York City, grew up in Watertown, New York, and completed an arts degree at Syracuse University. After graduation, he wrote material for Carl Ballantine, Larry Hankin, and the Charles Playhouse in Boston.

#7023

Ramzi Baalbaki

#104354

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (75 years)

Ramzi Baalbaki is a professor of the Arabic language at the American University of Beirut in Lebanon. During a career which has spanned over thirty years, Baalbaki has been recognized as a significant contributor to the field of Arabic grammar studies.

#7024

Barbara Craig

#134133

Overall Influence

1915 - 2005 (90 years)

Barbara Denise Craig was a British archaeologist, classicist, and academic, specialising in classical pottery. From 1967 to 1980, she was Principal of Somerville College, Oxford. Early life She was born on 22 October 1915 in Calcutta, British Raj. Her father was librarian of the Imperial Library of Calcutta . In 1920, she moved to London, England, with her mother and siblings; her father remained in India. She was educated at Haberdashers' Aske's School for Girls, a private school in Acton, London.

#7025

Abraham Burickson

#151780

Overall Influence

1975 - Present (51 years)

Abraham Burickson is an American poet and conceptual artist. Life Son of Sherwin Burickson, Abraham Burickson attended Cornell University, receiving a BA in architecture. In 2002 he moved to San Francisco where with actor Matthew Purdon he founded the conceptual art and performance group Odyssey Works. In 2008 Burickson received an MFA from The University of Texas Michener Center for Writers. His book, co-authored by Ayden LeRoux and published by Princeton Architectural Press in 2016, Odyssey Works: Transformative Experiences for an Audience of One outlines an approach to art-making as experience design.

#7026

Mayuko Watanabe

#112659

Overall Influence

1975 - Present (51 years)

Mayuko Watanabe is a Japanese journalist and media scholar specialized in media literacy, gender and sexuality. She had been a Senior Researcher and lecturer at Keio University Research Institute. Her research interest through nearly 20 years of career including as a TV news reporter has been the way of regulatory policy of obscene expressions. She has published research and provided media commentary on the topics of media communication and literacy of Japanese obscene content.

#7027

John James

#181561

Overall Influence

1987 - Present (39 years)

John Patrick James is an American poet, critic, and digital collagist. He is the author of The Milk Hours, selected by Henri Cole for the 2018 Max Ritvo Poetry Prize and forthcoming from Milkweed Editions. He is also the author of Chthonic, winner of the 2014 CutBank Chapbook Competition. His poems appear in Boston Review, Kenyon Review, Gulf Coast, Poetry Northwest, Best New Poets 2013 and 2016, Best American Poetry 2017, and other publications.

#7028

Samuel Tunde Bajah

#74577

Overall Influence

1934 - 2008 (74 years)

Samuel Babatunde Emiko Bajah was science teacher and author. He co-wrote Chemistry: A New Certificate Approach with Arthur Godman. Personal life Bajah was born on April 24, 1934, in Warri, Delta State, Nigeria to Joseph Bajah, a clerk with United Africa Company in Burutu, and his wife, Mary Bajah.

#7029

David Scott Milton

#188641

Overall Influence

1934 - 2020 (86 years)

David Scott Milton was an American author, playwright, screenwriter, and actor. His plays are known for their theatricality, wild humor, and poetic realism, while his novels and films are darker and more naturalistic. As a novelist, he has been compared to Graham Greene, John Steinbeck, and Nelson Algren. Ben Gazzara’s performance in Milton’s play, Duet, received a Tony nomination. Another play, Skin, won the Neil Simon Playwrights Award. His theater piece, Murderers Are My Life, was nominated as best one-man show by the Valley Theater League of Los Angeles. His second novel, Paradise Road,...

#7030

Vladana Likar-Smiljanić

#101303

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (83 years)

Vladana Likar-Smiljanić is a Serbian engineer, educator and book illustrator and writer. In the former Yugoslavia, Likar-Smiljanić illustrated children's books, of which hundreds of thousands of copies were sold. Her books were sold also in Spain, Italy, the United States, Germany, the Soviet Union. She initially became well-known for her page "Cica's Corner" in popular Yugoslav magazine for entertainment, Politikin Zabavnik. Her first illustrations appeared in The Treasury of Children's Poems by Jova Jovanović Zmaj.

#7031

Frédéric Boyer

#104245

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (65 years)

Frédéric Boyer is a French author of novels, poems, essays, and translations. Biography A former student of the École normale supérieure de Fontenay Saint-Cloud, he coordinated the Bible Nouvelle Traduction , with Olivier Cadiot, Jean Echenoz, Florence Delay, Jacques Roubaud, and others. He proposed new translations of the Confessions by Augustine of Hippo for which he was awarded the Prix Jules Janin of the Académie française as well as Richard II, P.O.L 2010 and Shakespeare's sonnets, P.O.L., 2010

#7032

Sarah Vaughan

#72425

Overall Influence

1972 - Present (54 years)

Sarah Hall , best known under the pseudonym Sarah Vaughan, is a British writer and journalist. Until 2008, she worked for The Guardian as a senior reporter, health correspondent, and political correspondent.

#7033

Michael McKeown Bondhus

#189776

Overall Influence

1981 - Present (45 years)

Michael McKeown Bondhus is an American poet and author of four books. His second book, All the Heat We Could Carry, was the winner of the 2013 Main Street Rag Poetry Book Award, the 2014 Thom Gunn Award for Gay Poetry, and a finalist for the Gival Press Poetry Book Award.

#7034

LaVahn Hoh

#116942

Overall Influence

LaVahn Hoh is an expert on technical theater, special effects, drama and the circus. Since 1969 he has been a professor of drama in the Department of Drama at the University of Virginia. He was born and raised in Appleton, Wisconsin and received his undergraduate degree from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire where he majored in speech and drama. He later received his Master of Fine Arts in drama from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

#7035

Judy Jordan

#116065

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (65 years)

Judy Jordan is an American poet. Her honors include the Walt Whitman Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. Life She grew up on a small farm near the Carolina border. Her parents were sharecroppers, and she was picking cotton by the time she was 5. She was the first member of her family to attend university, with a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Virginia in 1990, and a Master of Fine Arts degree in 1995. She earned a Master of Fine Arts degree, in fiction from the University of Utah, in 2000. She lived in Salt Lake City.

#7036

Jaume Vallcorba Plana

Jaume Vallcorba Plana

#188131

Overall Influence

1949 - 2014 (65 years)

Jaume Vallcorba Plana was a Spanish philologist and publisher. Life and career Born in Tarragona, Catalonia, he completed an Arts degree at the Autonomous University of Barcelona and obtained a PhD at the University of Barcelona with a thesis on Josep Maria Junoy and the early European avant-garde movements. He was a lecturer and professor in Literature at the University of Bordeaux, the University of Lleida, the University of Barcelona and the Pompeu Fabra University but he left university teaching in 2004.

#7037

James M. Acton

#83447

Overall Influence

James M. Acton is a British academic and scientist. He is co-director of the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Early life Acton was awarded his PhD in theoretical physics at Cambridge University.

#7038

Song Ha-choon

#190555

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (82 years)

Song Ha-choon is a South Korean writer, critic, and a researcher of Korean literature. Early life and education He was born in Kimje, Jeollabukdo. He graduated from Namsung Middle School and Namsung High School in Iksan, Jeollabukdo. He entered Sungkyunkwan University but dropped out. Later he graduated from Korea University in Korean literature and received a doctorate from the same school. He then worked as a Korean literature professor at Korea University.

#7039

Robert Taylor

#144864

Overall Influence

1944 - 2014 (70 years)

Robert Taylor was an American Primetime Emmy Award-winning animator, writer, producer and film director. Taylor's credits include such films and television series as The Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat, The Flintstone Kids, It's Flashbeagle, Charlie Brown, Challenge of the GoBots, Challenge of the Superfriends, Bonkers, Goof Troop, Aladdin and the King of Thieves, TaleSpin and Heidi's Song.

#7040

Gerald Michael Browne

#180026

Overall Influence

1943 - 2004 (61 years)

Gerald Michael Browne was professor emeritus of classics at the University of Illinois. He was a founding editor, in 1988, of the Journal of Coptic Studies. The principal biographical study of his life is an article by Vincent W.J. van Gerven Oei.

#7041

Jesús Rosas Marcano

Jesús Rosas Marcano

#89704

Overall Influence

1930 - 2001 (71 years)

Jesús Rosas Marcano , was a Venezuelan educator, journalist, poet and composer of folk songs popularized by the group Un Solo Pueblo, such as "Botaste la bola" and "Negro como yo". Marcano was born in La Asunción. In 1945, he graduated as school teacher at the Miguel Antonio Caro Institute. Began his career at the Rural School Caurimare in east Caracas. Later, studied journalism in the Central University of Venezuela , receiving postgraduate education at the Sorbonne University of Paris. From his return in the late 1950s, starts working as teacher and researcher in his alma mater. Worked as re...

#7042

William Benton

#135779

Overall Influence

1939 - Present (87 years)

William Benton is an American writer, poet, and novelist. He has published multiple volumes of poetry, including Birds, Marmalade, and Backlit. Madly, a novel, was published in 2005. His nonfiction work includes the book Exchanging Hats, on the paintings of poet Elizabeth Bishop, and co-editing the book Gods of Tin: The Flying Years about James Salter.

#7043

Mari Saat

#90472

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (79 years)

Mari Saat is an Estonian writer. In 1970, Saat graduated from the Tallinn Polytechnical Institute's faculty of economics. Since 1976, she has been a member of the Estonian Writers' Union. During the period of 1983–1993, she was a professional writer.

#7044

Bert O. States

#160651

Overall Influence

1929 - 2003 (74 years)

Bert Olen States was a playwright, critic and a professor emeritus of dramatic arts at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He earned a B.A and M.A. from Penn State University. He went on to study at Yale University, earning in 1960 a Doctorate in Fine Arts. He taught at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute , Skidmore College and at the University of Pittsburgh . He was an associate and full professor at Cornell University and a professor at the department of Dramatic Art at University of California, Santa Barbara. Acting .

#7045

Susan L. Mizruchi

#187410

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (67 years)

Susan Laura Mizruchi is professor of English literature and the William Arrowsmith Professor in the Humanities at Boston University. Her research interests include nineteenth- and twentieth-century American literature, religion and culture, literary and social theory, literary history, history of the social sciences, and American and Global Film and TV. Since 2016, she has served as the director of the Boston University Center for the Humanities.

#7046

Steve Gehrke

#190795

Overall Influence

1971 - Present (55 years)

Steve Gehrke is an American poet. Life He was raised in Mankato, Minnesota. He graduated from Minnesota State University, and University of Texas-Austin, with an MFA. He graduated from the University of Missouri with a Ph.D., where he studied with Lynne McMahon, and Sherod Santos. He was poetry editor of the Missouri Review. He taught at the University of Missouri, Seton Hall University, and Gettysburg College. He currently teaches in the MFA program at the University of Nevada, Reno.

#7047

Isabel Torres

#185701

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (61 years)

Isabel Marie Bernadette Torres is Professor of Spanish Golden Age Literature at Queen’s University Belfast. Biography Torres gained her Bachelor's degree and PhD from Queen's University. She was elected as member of the Royal Irish Academy in 2019, and as a Fellow of the British Academy in 2020.

#7048

Simon Eliot

#172996

Overall Influence

Simon Eliot is professor of the History of the Book at the Institute of English Studies, School of Advanced Study, at the University of London. He is the general editor of the History of Oxford University Press and the editor of Publishing History. He is the joint editor of Wiley-Blackwell's A Companion to the History of the Book .

#7049

George Michael Cuomo

#126017

Overall Influence

1929 - 2015 (86 years)

George Michael Cuomo was an American author of eight novels, as well as short stories, poetry, and a nonfiction book. Life He attended Stuyvesant High School and earned a B.A from Tufts University in 1952 and an M.A. from Indiana University in 1955. Cuomo taught at the University of Arizona, the University of California, the University of Victoria in British Columbia, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

#7050

Craig Harrison

#64934

Overall Influence

1942 - Present (84 years)

Craig Harrison is a British-New Zealand author, playwright, scriptwriter, and retired university lecturer, probably best known for his novel The Quiet Earth, which was published in 1982. Harrison's output has ranged widely, from science fiction to junior fiction, to comedies parodying academia. All of his books were published first in his adopted home of New Zealand.

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