Steven Knapp

Provost
Vice President for Academic Affairs
Dean of the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences
Johns Hopkins University

Steven Knapp (45), has been Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs since January 1996 and Dean of the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences since September 1994. Dr. Knapp came to Johns Hopkins from the University of California at Berkeley, where he was a member of the Department of English from 1978 to 1994. A literary scholar specializing in British literature from the late seventeenth through the early nineteenth century, Dr. Knapp is the author of two books and numerous articles on literary history and the theory of criticism and interpretation. As a theorist, he is best known for his work on the role of authorial intention in debates about the meaning of literary and legal texts. Other subjects of his publications include the philosophy of ethics and the relations between science and religion.

In 1981, Dr. Knapp became one of the founding editors of the interdisciplinary journal, Representations. He is a member of the Modern Language Association and served for many years on the executive committee of Center for Hermeneutical Studies, a joint program of U.C. Berkeley and the Graduate Theological Seminary. While on the faculty at Berkeley, he held numerous administrative positions in the English Department, including chair of Graduate Studies and Acting Chair, and participated extensively in the committees of the Academic Senate.

Dr. Knapp received his bachelor's degree from Yale in 1973. He did his graduate work at Cornell, receiving his M.A. in 1977 and his Ph.D. in 1981.