Laura Knoppers

Laura L. Knoppers is the George N. Shuster Professor of English Literature and Chair of the Department of English at the University of Notre Dame. She holds a Ph.D. and M.A. in English Literature from Harvard University and a B.A. in English Literature from Calvin College. Knoppers joined Notre Dame in 2014 as Professor of English and was elevated to George N. Shuster Professor in 2018. She assumed the role of Department Chair in 2021. Previously, she spent nearly three decades at Pennsylvania State University, advancing from Assistant Professor in 1986 to Liberal Arts Research Professor from 2011 to 2014. She also served as Director of the Institute for the Arts and Humanities at Penn State from 2001 to 2005.

Knoppers's primary research focus is on John Milton’s works and life in religious, political, and cultural contexts, alongside seventeenth-century British literature, early modern women writers particularly Margaret Cavendish, gender in history, poetry and poetics, and the English Revolution. Her key publications include editor of Seventeenth-Century British Poetry, Volume 5 of The Oxford History of Poetry in English (Oxford University Press, 2024); Politicizing Domesticity from Henrietta Maria to Milton’s Eve (Cambridge University Press, 2011); editor of The Cambridge Companion to Early Modern Women’s Writing (Cambridge University Press, 2009); the award-winning scholarly edition of The 1671 Poems: Paradise Regain’d and Samson Agonistes, Volume II of The Complete Works of John Milton (Oxford University Press, 2008); Constructing Cromwell: Ceremony, Portrait, and Print, 1645-1661 (Cambridge University Press, 2000); and Historicizing Milton: Spectacle, Power, and Poetry in Restoration England (University of Georgia Press, 1994). She edited the journal Milton Studies from 2009 to 2018 and currently works on a book about luxury, cultural politics, and the court of Charles II. Knoppers has received the Honored Scholar of the Milton Society of America for lifetime achievement (2016), Irene Samuel Memorial Award (2015), 2025 College of Arts & Letters Graduate Student Mentorship Award, and selection to Notre Dame’s 2025 All-Faculty Team, along with fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Folger Shakespeare Library, and others. She has supervised ten completed dissertations and served on over thirty committees.

Professional Email: lknoppe1@nd.edu