Dr. Claire Schmidt

Dr. Claire Schmidt is a folklorist and associate professor of English. She teaches courses in British and World literature and writing. Her areas of literary expertise include early medieval British literature (Anglo Saxon hagiography and oral tradition), Chaucer, postcolonial British fiction, and global mystery fiction. Claire specializes in creative nonfiction, public writing, and grant writing. As a folklorist, Claire’s research is focused on the everyday, specifically occupational humor and foodways and race. She is the author of If You Don’t Laugh You’ll Cry: The Occupational Humor of White Wisconsin Prison Workers (2017, University of Wisconsin Press) and has published research in Western Folklore, Digest: A Journal of Foodways and Culture, Oral Tradition, as well as in edited collections, including Wait Five Minutes: Weatherlore in the Twenty-First Century, Culture Work: Folklore for the Public Good, Reading Mystery Science Theatre: Critical Approaches and History of Folklore Studies in the United States and Canada.

• PhD in English with a concentration in folklore, oral tradition, and cultural studies, University of Missouri
• MA in English, University of Missouri
• BA in English, University of Wisconsin, Madison