Faculty Profile
Jacob Sider Jost
Associate Professor of English (2011)
Contact Information
East College
717-254-8950
Bio
I am a teacher and scholar of literature, focused on the British eighteenth century. At Dickinson I teach courses about the epic, Shakespeare, the early novel, eighteenth-century poetry and drama, and fairy stories from Spenser to the Grimms. I am the author of two monographs, Prose Immortality, 1711-1819 (2015), and Interest and Connection in the Eighteenth Century: Hervey, Johnson, Smith, Equiano (2020), both from the University of Virginia Press. I have also published essays on Shakespeare, Shaftesbury, Defoe, Hume, Johnson, Cowper, Proust, and other figures. I am currently writing a history of life-writing in eighteenth-century Britain for Oxford University Press.
Education
- B.A., Goshen College, 2002
- B.A., University of Oxford, 2005
- M.A., 2009
- Ph.D., Harvard University, 2011
2025-2026 Academic Year
Fall 2025
ENGL 341 English Literature: 1660-1800
Canonical authors and marginal voices of the long eighteenth century. Plagues, fires, invasions, fashion, theology, flirtation, lexicography, heavy drinking, slavery, rebellion, municipal sanitation, love. Pepys, Dryden, Rochester, Behn, Addison, Pope, Swift, Johnson, Wheatley, the sarcastic works of teenage Austen.
ENGL 403 Meth/Models of Lit Schol
This course prepares students to write a senior thesis by exploring key questions and methods in literary scholarship. Students in this seminar will pursue intensive reading, writing and discussion designed to: (1) strengthen their grasp of the history and current configuration of literary studies and related fields; (2) help them frame and begin to pursue the questions that will motivate their senior theses; and (3) hone their critical self-awareness as readers and writers.
Spring 2026
ENGL 101 The History of Love
We will trace the long history of love narratives in the Western tradition, from the classical world to today. We will follow the evolution of key concepts such as sexuality, parental authority, mutuality, companionship, possession, jealousy, and subjectivity. Authors read will likely include Sappho, the Song of Solomon, Plato, Shakespeare, Austen, and Morrison.
ENGL 404 Senior Thesis Workshop
A workshop requiring students to share discoveries and problems as they produce a lengthy manuscript based on a topic of their own choosing, subject to the approval of the instructor.Prerequisites: 403.
MEMS 490 The Senior Experience
Senior Projects and Research in Medieval & Early Modern Studies. Seniors in the major will work independently with a director and a second faculty reader (representing another discipline in the major) to produce a lengthy paper or special project which focuses on an issue relevant to the cluster of courses taken previously. Under the direction of the program coordinator, students will meet collectively 2 or 3 times during the semester with the directors (and, if possible, other MEMS faculty) to share bibliographies, research data, early drafts, and the like. This group will also meet at the end of the semester to discuss and evaluate final papers and projects.Prerequisite. 200; four-course "cluster."