Richard Schumaker's Statement

Richard Schumaker, University of Maryland University College:

Richard Schumaker brings considerable national and international experience, a solid academic background and accomplishments, and very considerable administrative success to his candidacy for the position of NeMLA Director of Comparative Literature and Languages.

Professor Schumaker was originally educated at the University of California and the University of Paris-IV (Sorbonne), from which he holds three graduate degrees.    In Paris, he worked directly with Michel Haar, Henri, Birault, and Emmanuel Levinas.  His main area of interest was the reflection of Nietzsche and Heidegger on modern literature.

For over twenty years, Richard taught a wide-range of humanities courses for the University of Maryland University College in Italy and Germany.  During his time in Europe, he edited and co-edited Focus on Robert Graves and His Contemporaries and helped organize many conferences on Graves, as well as conferences and colloquia on the culture of the Great War and global cinema.  He also taught American political culture and aspects of the research process in the University of Trier’s “Fachspezifische Fremdsprachenausbildung” program.

Starting in the mid-1990’s, Richard Schumaker played a leading role in developing the teaching of online writing and humanities courses for the University of Maryland in Europe.  In 2004, he returned to Metropolitan Washington, D.C. to work as a UMUC administrator and subsequent senior fellow in preparing faculty to teach online classes rigorously and effectively.   From 2004 through 2014 he continued to teach and write, concentrating on the teaching of advanced Shakespeare classes.  In the last two years, he has presented at the International Comparative Literature Conference in Paris (AILC 2013) and at the International Zola Conference in New Orleans (AIZEN 2014), as well as the latest NeMLA conferences at Boston and Harrisburg.  

Richard has received many awards and held many national positions over the years:  Maryland Distance Learning Association President, Maryland Administrator of the Year, University of Maryland University College Presidential Award, UMUC representative to the state academic senate (CUSF), and others.

As director of this NeMLA program, Richard will focus on the following goals:

·         Presenting avenues of scholarship that reflect current global academic trends and practices

·         Developing areas such as distance learning, accessibility, and working-adult themes and practices

·         Integrating contemporary social media into our programs and offerings

·         Developing approaches to literatures and cultures that might ordinarily be neglected