The Most Influential People Across History
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.
Students and researchers now have a fast and reliable way to find influential thinkers from 24 disciplines and 300 sub-disciplines (and growing). If you want to find history’s most influential philsosophers, or the world’s most influential mathematicians currently, now you can.
We also provide custom rankings of people by discipline as well as interviews with influential academics who are currently active.
To use this tool, select the discipline (and optional subdiscipline) relevant to your research, and specify influential academics by history, world, or US. Even results that are counterintuitive are often enlightening (our algorithm always picks up a signal).
Methodology: How and Why We Rank by Influence …
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List of the most influential people in Literature,
#3001
Germán Gullón
#90354
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Germán Gullón , literary critic and writer, is a professor of Spanish literature and member of the Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis at the University of Amsterdam. He has authored, beside his scholarly works and essays, two books of short stories, Adiós, Helena de Troya and Azulete, and two novels, Querida hija and La codicia de Guillermo de Orange.
Go to Profile#3002
Boris Kondakov
#100534
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Boris Vadimovich Kondakov is a Russian specialist in literary criticism, philologist, Doctor of Philology, head of Russian literature department, Dean of philological faculty at Perm State National Research University . He is a grandson of Vadim Alexandrovich Kondakov , Professor of Perm State University, and a brother of Igor Vadimovich Kondakov , a philosopher and culturologist. Also he is a leader of the school "Typological Regularities and Dialogue of Cultures in Russian Literature of the 19th to 21st Centuries".
Go to Profile#3003
Gerald Durrell
#33525
Overall Influence
1925 - 1995 (70 years)
Gerald Malcolm Durrell, was a British naturalist, writer, zookeeper, conservationist, and television presenter. He founded the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust and the Jersey Zoo on the Channel Island of Jersey in 1959. He wrote approximately forty books, mainly about his life as an animal collector and enthusiast, the most famous being My Family and Other Animals . Those memoirs of his family's years living in Greece were adapted into two television series and one television film . He was the youngest brother of novelist Lawrence Durrell.
Go to Profile#3004
Jane Miller
#80595
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Jane Miller is an American poet. Life Jane Miller was born in New York and lives in Tucson, Arizona. She served as a professor for many years in the Creative Writing Program at The University of Arizona—including a stint as its Director—and is currently Visiting Poet at The University of Texas Michener Center in Austin. She has published ten volumes of poetry of which The Greater Leisures was a National Poetry Series selection. Who Is Trixie the Trasher? and Other Questions is her most recent book of poems.
Go to Profile#3005
Gene Colan
#43495
Overall Influence
1926 - 2011 (85 years)
Eugene Jules Colan was an American comic book artist best known for his work for Marvel Comics, where his signature titles include the superhero series Daredevil, the cult-hit satiric series Howard the Duck, and The Tomb of Dracula, considered one of comics' classic horror series. He co-created the Falcon, the first African-American superhero in mainstream comics; Carol Danvers, who would become Ms. Marvel and Captain Marvel; and the non-costumed, supernatural vampire hunter Blade.
Go to Profile#3006
Stéphane Audeguy
#63458
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
Stéphane Audeguy is a French novelist and essayist. He studied literature at the University of Paris, where he also taught. He served as an assistant professor at the University of Virginia at Charlottesville between 1986 and 1987. He returned to France and now lives in Paris where he teaches art history and film history at a local high school.
Go to Profile#3007
Pancracio Celdrán
#61441
Overall Influence
1942 - 2019 (77 years)
Pancracio Celdrán Gomáriz was a Spanish professor, intellectual and journalist whose specialties were the history and literature of antiquity and the medieval period. Early life and education Born in Murcia, Celdrán received a degree in Hispanic literature and a doctorate in philosophy and letters from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid; a master's degree in comparative history; and has also received degrees in middle eastern history, English literature, comparative literature, and Hebrew language and culture.
Go to Profile#3008
Yasmeen Hameed
#50051
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Yasmeen Hameed is a Pakistani Urdu poet, translator and an educator. Career Yasmeen Hameed has more than thirty years of experience in the fields of education, literature and art. She was the Founding Director of Gurmani Centre for South Asian Languages and Literature in the Social Sciences Department at the Lahore University of Management Sciences where she worked from 2007 to August 2016.
Go to Profile#3009
Max Harris
#38279
Overall Influence
1921 - 1995 (74 years)
Maxwell Henley Harris AO , generally known as Max Harris, was an Australian poet, critic, columnist, commentator, publisher, and bookseller. Early life Harris was born in Adelaide, South Australia, and raised in the city of Mount Gambier, where his father was based as a travelling salesman. His early poetry was published in the children's pages of The Sunday Mail. He continued to write poetry through his secondary schooling after winning a scholarship to St Peter's College, Adelaide. By the time he began attending the University of Adelaide, he was already known as a poet and intellectual. In...
Go to Profile#3010
David Mourão-Ferreira
#47397
Overall Influence
1927 - 1996 (69 years)
David de Jesus Mourão-Ferreira, GCSE was a Portuguese writer and poet from Lisbon. He was a son of David Ferreira and wife Teresa de Jesus Ferro Mourão . He studied Romanic Philology in 1951 in the University of Lisbon and in 1957 became a Professor.
Go to Profile#3011
Patricia Powell
#65750
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
Patricia Powell is a Jamaican writer, who has won awards for her novels. Biography Born in Jamaica, she moved to the United States in her late teens. She received her bachelor's degree at Wellesley College, and an MFA in creative writing from Brown University, where she studied with Michael Ondaatje, among others.
Go to Profile#3012
Rita Kothari
#37694
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (57 years)
Rita Kothari is a Gujarati and English language author and translator from Gujarat, India. In an attempt to preserve her memories and her identity as a member of the Sindhi people, Kothari wrote several books on partition and its effects on people. She has translated several Gujarati works into English.
Go to Profile#3013
Anthony Marra
#75290
Overall Influence
1984 - Present (42 years)
Anthony Marra is an American fiction writer. Marra has won numerous awards for his short stories, as well as his first novel, A Constellation of Vital Phenomena, which was a New York Times best seller.
Go to Profile#3014
Michael Collier
#60968
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Michael Robert Collier is an American poet, teacher, creative writing program administrator and editor. He has published five books of original poetry, a translation of Euripides' Medea, a book of prose pieces about poetry, and has edited three anthologies of poetry. From 2001 to 2004 he was the Poet Laureate of Maryland. As of 2011, he is the director of the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, a professor of creative writing at the University of Maryland, College Park and the poetry editorial consultant for Houghton Mifflin .
Go to Profile#3015
Robert L. Belknap
#36720
Overall Influence
1929 - 2014 (85 years)
Robert Lamont Belknap was an American scholar of Russian literature. He was a professor at Columbia University, where he served as interim dean of Columbia College, and director of the Harriman Institute. He received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1994.
Go to Profile#3016
Rosa Beltrán
#34378
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Rosa María Beltrán Álvarez is a Mexican novelist, short story writer, essayist, and translator. She was the deputy director of La Jornada Semanal from 1999 to 2002 and has been a member of the Sistema Nacional de Creadores from 1997 to 2000. She was the director of the Literature department at the UNAM and is actually the chair in Coordinación de Difusión Cultural at UNAM. On June 12, 2014, she was appointed as a member by the Academia Mexicana de la Lengua as the 36th Chair, becoming the tenth woman to hold this position.
Go to Profile#3017
Don Nigro
#55953
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Don Nigro is an American playwright; his plays Anima Mundi and The Dark Sonnets of the Lady have both been nominated for the National Repertory Theatre Foundation's National Play Award. He has won a Playwright's Fellowship Grant from the National Endowment For The Arts, grants from the Mary Roberts Rinehart Foundation and the Ohio Arts Council, and twice been James Thurber Writer In Residence at the Thurber House in Columbus, Ohio.
Go to Profile#3018
Bertha Harris
#53680
Overall Influence
1937 - 2005 (68 years)
Bertha Harris was an American lesbian novelist. She is highly regarded by critics and admirers, but her novels are less familiar to the broader public. Personal life Bertha Anne Harris was born in Fayetteville, North Carolina on December 17, 1937 to John Holmes Harris and Mary Zeleka Jones.
Go to Profile#3019
Ulrich Schindel
#63343
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (91 years)
Ulrich Schindel is a German classical philologist. He earned his doctorate from the University of Göttingen in 1961, his thesis being Demosthenes in the 18th century . In 1971, Schindel received his habilitation. From 1974 to 1976 he was associate professor until he succeeded Will Richter as Full Professor of Classics. He taught Latin and Greek literature until his retirement as professor emeritus in 2003.
Go to Profile#3020
Jimmy Perry
#59887
Overall Influence
1923 - 2016 (93 years)
James Perry was an English script writer and actor. He devised and co-wrote the BBC sitcomss Dad's Army , It Ain't Half Hot Mum , Hi-De-Hi and You Rang, M'Lord? , all with David Croft. Perry co-wrote the theme tune of Dad's Army, "Who Do You Think You Are Kidding, Mr. Hitler?" along with Derek Taverner, for which Perry received an Ivor Novello Award from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors in 1971.
Go to Profile#3021
Klaus Döring
#55786
Overall Influence
1938 - Present (88 years)
Klaus Döring is a German classical philologist and philosophical historian. Life and work Döring studied Classical philology, philosophy and musicology at the Universities of Kiel, Würzburg, Hamburg and Freiburg from 1957 to 1964. In 1964 he took the first state examination in Greek and Latin. From 1966, he worked at the University of Freiburg, initially in an assistant position. After he received his doctorate in 1970, he became an Academic Assistant. In 1976 he achieved his habilitation in classical philology at Freiburg. From 1978 to 1980 he completed a clerkship at the South Baden higher education authority.
Go to Profile#3022
Nicholas Rudall
#76564
Overall Influence
1940 - 2018 (78 years)
D. Nicholas Rudall was a Welsh professor of classical languages and literature as well as humanities and Ancient Mediterranean history at the University of Chicago. He specialized in Greek drama, and translated numerous works by Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes. His translations and adaptations are published by Ivan R. Dee of Chicago, for whom he was co-editor of the Plays for Performance Series with longtime friend and colleague Bernard Sahlins. Among undergraduates, Rudall is known particularly for his work with prominent Shakespearean David Bevington, with whom he created and co-taug...
Go to Profile#3023
Isaac Chocrón
#55101
Overall Influence
1930 - 2011 (81 years)
Isaac Chocrón Serfaty was a Venezuelan economist, playwright and translator. He was a graduate of Columbia University and Manchester University. He later directed the School of Arts at the Central University of Venezuela.
Go to Profile#3024
Ishion Hutchinson
#81991
Overall Influence
1901 - Present (125 years)
Ishion Hutchinson is a Jamaican poet and essayist. Biography Hutchinson was born in Port Antonio, Jamaica. He received a BA from the University of the West Indies, an MFA from New York University, and completed graduate studies at the University of Utah.
Go to Profile#3025
Marek Krajewski
#44567
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
Marek Krajewski is a Polish crime writer and linguist. He is best known for his series of novels set in pre-war Wrocław with the policeman Eberhard Mock as the protagonist. His novels have been translated into 20 languages including English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Dutch, Hebrew, Greek, Swedish and Russian.
Go to Profile#3026
Gary Geddes
#45324
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
Gary Geddes is a Canadian poet and writer. Biography He spent four years of his childhood on the Canadian prairies, but otherwise remained on the west coast until 1963, where he got his bachelor's degree in English and Philosophy at the University of British Columbia. Geddes received his M.A. and Ph.D. in English at the University of Toronto. He taught English and Creative Writing at Concordia University for twenty years . Then he returned to the west coast, where he was appointed Distinguished Professor of Canadian Culture at Western Washington University . He has also taught English at the ...
Go to Profile#3027
Ronald A. Bosco
#29430
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Ronald A. Bosco is the Distinguished Professor of English and American Literature at the University at Albany, State University of New York, is currently President of the Association for Documentary Editing and General Editor of Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson published by Harvard University Press. Bosco is one of the country's leading experts on the works of Ralph Waldo Emerson and on American Puritan homiletics and poetics.
Go to Profile#3028
Cynthia Zarin
#69209
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Cynthia Zarin is an American poet and journalist. Life She graduated from Harvard University magna cum laude, and Columbia University with an M.F.A. She married Michael Seccareccia on January 24, 1988, but later divorced. She married Joseph Goddu on December 6, 1997, but later divorced.
Go to Profile#3029
Suhayr al-Qalamawi
#85863
Overall Influence
1911 - 1997 (86 years)
Sahier al-Qalamawi was a significant literary figure and politician from Egypt who shaped Arabic writing and culture through her writing, feminist activism, and advocacy. She was one of the first women to attend Cairo University and in 1941 became the first Egyptian woman to earn her Master of Arts Degree and PhD for her work in Arabic literature. After graduating, she was employed by the university as their first woman lecturer. Al-Qalamawi was also one of the first women to hold a number of chief positions including chairperson of the Arabic Department at Cairo University, president of the Egyptian Feminist Union, and president of the League of Arab Women University Graduates.
Go to Profile#3030
Robert E. Fleming
#77128
Overall Influence
1936 - Present (90 years)
Robert Edward Fleming , is an American literary scholar known for his work on Ernest Hemingway. He is a professor emeritus of English at the University of New Mexico. In 2005 he co-edited a scholarly edition of Ernest Hemingway's Under Kilimanjaro.
Go to Profile#3031
Seán Ó Tuama
#65671
Overall Influence
1926 - 2006 (80 years)
Seán Ó Tuama was an Irish poet, playwright and academic. Life Raised in the southern city of Cork and educated at the North Monastery school and University College Cork, Ó Tuama first came to prominence in 1950 with his anthology of modern Irish language poetry titled Nuabhéarsaíocht 1939-1949.
Go to Profile#3032
Miriam Cooke
#38720
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Miriam Cooke is an American academic in Middle Eastern and Arab world studies. She focuses on modern Arabic literature and critical reassessment of women's roles in the public sphere. She was educated in the United Kingdom, and is co-editor of the Journal of Middle East Women's Studies. She has published over 100 articles and 130 book reviews.
Go to Profile#3033
N. Gopi
#67975
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
N. Gopi is an eminent Indian poet, and literary critic in Telugu and Sahitya Akademi Award recipient. He has also been in the University system as a professor and Dean since 1974, until retiring in 2008. He has also held the post of the Vice Chancellor of Potti Sreeramulu Telugu University, Hyderabad. Gopi's poetry displays nativity and a national outlook.
Go to Profile#3034
John Koethe
#61211
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
John Koethe is an American poet, essayist and professor of philosophy at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. Biography Koethe is originally from San Diego, California. He was educated at Princeton University and Harvard University.
Go to Profile#3035
Roberto Simanowski
#65098
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Roberto Simanowski is a German scholar of literature and media studies and founder of dichtung-digital. Simanowski studied German literature and history at the University of Jena where he finished his PhD on mass-culture around 1800 with a grant by the German Studienstiftung in 1996. He worked at the University of Göttingen in the research center Nationality of International Literatures in 1997 and 1998, conducted his research project Cyberspace and Literature with a stipend from the German Humboldt-Foundation at Harvard University 1998 until 2000, was visiting scholar at the University of Wa...
Go to Profile#3036
Amanda Lohrey
#53734
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Amanda Frances Lillian Lohrey is an Australian writer and novelist. Career Lohrey completed her education at the University of Tasmania before taking up a scholarship at the University of Cambridge. From 1988 to 1994 she lectured in writing and textual studies at the University of Technology, Sydney. She has held the position of lecturer in School of English, Media Studies and Art History at the University of Queensland in Brisbane in 2002, and joined the Australian National University School of Literature, Languages, and Linguistics as a visiting fellow in 2016 where she continues to write ...
Go to Profile#3037
Alma Flor Ada
#50152
Overall Influence
1938 - Present (88 years)
Alma Flor Ada is a Cuban-American author of children's books, poetry, and novels. A Professor Emerita at the University of San Francisco, she is recognized for her work promoting bilingual and multicultural education in the United States.
Go to Profile#3038
Bob Layton
#53210
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Bob Layton is an American comic book artist, writer, and editor. He is best known for his work on Marvel Comics titles such as Iron Man and Hercules, and for co-founding Valiant Comics with Jim Shooter.
Go to Profile#3039
Raphaël Enthoven
#13492
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (51 years)
Raphaël Enthoven is a French philosophy teacher, radio host and television host. An agrégé who taught at Jean Moulin University Lyon 3 and Paris Diderot University, Enthoven is known to the French public for hosting various philosophy-related shows on radio and television. Although he has been described as a philosopher, Enthoven himself rejects being labeled as such.
Go to Profile#3040
Okey Ndibe
#71681
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Okechukwu "Okey" Ndibe is a novelist, political columnist, and essayist of Igbo ethnicity. Ndibe was born in Yola, Nigeria. He is the author of Arrows of Rain and Foreign Gods, Inc., two critically acclaimed novels published in 2000 and 2014 respectively.
Go to Profile#3041
Derek Brewer
#42527
Overall Influence
1923 - 2008 (85 years)
Derek Stanley Brewer was a Welsh medieval scholar, author and publisher. Life Born in Cardiff, Wales, the son of a clerk with General Electric, Brewer read English at Magdalen College, Oxford, where he was taught, among others, by C. S. Lewis. He served as infantry officer with the Worcestershire Regiment and with the Royal Fusiliers during World War II, from 1942 to 1945, then returned to Oxford. He took a Second. He was appointed lecturer at the University of Birmingham, where he remained until 1964, when he moved to Cambridge to take up the position of lecturer in English and then become fellow of Emmanuel College.
Go to Profile#3042
David McCooey
#80718
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
David McCooey , poet, critic, musician, and academic. He is Personal Chair in Literary Studies and Professional & Creative Writing at Deakin University in Geelong. Early life and education David McCooey was born in London in 1967. He moved to Perth, Western Australia, with his family in 1970. He studied for a BA at University of Western Australia , and completed his doctorate at Sydney University .
Go to Profile#3043
David Baker
#53820
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
David Baker is an American poet. He is Emeritus Professor of English at Denison University where he still teaches. He served for more than 25 years as poetry editor of the Kenyon Review and continues to curate "Nature's Nature" for the magazine.
Go to Profile#3044
Keith Maillard
#30718
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Keith Maillard is a Canadian-American novelist, poet, and professor of creative writing at the University of British Columbia. He moved to Canada in 1970 and became a Canadian citizen in 1976. Family background Maillard has French, Canadian, and American roots. His Huguenots great grandparents immigrated to Montreal from Lyon, France, in the early 1880s. His Maillard grandfather and two Montreal-born uncles continued the family tradition of glass-blowing, working for Dominion Glass in Montreal and in Redcliff, Alberta.
Go to Profile#3045
Allen Kurzweil
#67867
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Allen Kurzweil is an American novelist, journalist, editor, and lecturer. He is the author of four works of fiction, most notably A Case of Curiosities, as well as a memoir Whipping Boy. He is also the co-inventor, with his son Max, of Potato Chip Science, an eco-friendly experiment kit for grade schoolers. He is a cousin of Ray Kurzweil and brother of Vivien Schmidt.
Go to Profile#3046
Diana Ramírez de Arellano
#101963
Overall Influence
1919 - 1997 (78 years)
Diana Ramírez de Arellano was an American poet, literary critic and professor of Spanish language and literature. A former Poet Laureate of Puerto Rico, she taught at the City College of New York for many years. In 1963, she founded the Ateneo Puertorriqueño de Nueva York, a cultural center for Puerto Ricans in New York.
Go to Profile#3047
John Frow
#60379
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
John Frow is an Australian academic who works in the areas of literary theory, narrative theory, intellectual property law, and cultural studies. He is currently a professor of English at the University of Sydney.
Go to Profile#3048
Lisa Yaszek
#85725
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (57 years)
Lisa Yaszek is an American academic in the field of science fiction literature, particularly the history and cultural implications of the genre and underrepresented groups in science fiction, including women and people of color. She is a Regents professor in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
Go to Profile#3049
Ernest Hebert
#48398
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
Ernest Hebert is an American author. He is best known for the Darby Chronicles Series, which is a series of seven novels written between 1979 and 2014 about modern life in a fictional New Hampshire town as it transitions from relative rural poverty to being more upscale, almost suburban. He has also written several stand-alone novels, including Mad Boys, The Old American, and The Contrarian Voice: And Other Poems.
Go to Profile#3050
Sylvia Wilkinson
#72795
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
Sylvia Jean Wilkinson is an American author. She was born in Durham, North Carolina, United States and grew up in the nearby community of Nelson. She graduated from Woman's College, now the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, in 1962. She received her master's degree from Hollins College in 1963 and studied at Stanford University under a Wallace Stegner Creative Writing Fellowship 1965-66.
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