Phillip A. Snyder

Phil Snyder specializes in contemporary American literature, studies in autobiography, and Western studies. He teaches courses in these and other areas on both the undergraduate and graduate levels. Over the years he has taught thirty-six different courses at BYU. Professor Snyder considers himself something of a postmodernist with a strong interest in ethics; his scholarship and course organization reflect these theoretical interests. He has taught at BYU since 1988. His courses require students to think for themselves and to make substantial contributions to class discussion. Because he encourages his students to write with conference presentation and publication in mind, many of them have presented their term papers at conferences and several have had their papers published. Professor Snyder did his doctoral work at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; his dissertation was “Constructional Codes in the Kunstlerroman” with Professor Linda S. Kauffman serving as his advisor. He has published articles on a variety of subjects and authors, including Saul Bellow, Zora Neale Hurston, Cormac McCarthy, Terry Tempest Williams, and Thomas Wolfe. He has a book, Post-Manifesto Polygamy: The 1899-1904 Correspondence of Helen, Owen, and Avery Woodruff, from Utah State University Press (2009). While at BYU Professor Snyder has received an NEH Summer Seminar Fellowship, an Alcuin Fellowship in General Education, Student Alumni Association Awards for Excellence in Teaching, a Redd Center Research Assistant Award. the Zelda Gitlin Literary Prize from the Thomas Wolfe Society, a Citizenship Award from the English Department, a College of Humanties Professorship, and a Karl G. Maeser Excellence in Teaching award from the University. He lives with his wife Delys and two horses (J.D. and Smoky) in idyllic Salem on 5 acres surrounded by cows, horses, and other good neighbors. Together they have eight children and ten grandchildren.