Email: schollpe@luther.edu
Office: Main 502
Phone: 563-387-1599

"There have been many moments in the classroom… when I and the students all know that we have collectively created a new awareness, and the rewards of study are in us and with us in the room."

Snapshot

An Americanist, Peter Scholl also teaches our film courses.  He has a BA from Augustana (IL), a PhD from the U of Chicago, and a fine book on Garrison Keillor (Twayne; U of Iowa Press), but lately his research interests have moved eastward:  having studied the language, traveled extensively in China, and led study abroad programs there, Peter is our resident expert on all things Chinese.  His other interests include American humor and the Civil War, and he teaches a popular first-year course on Abraham Lincoln.  The able editor of Agora:  Luther College in Conversation—Luther’s fine faculty journal--Peter is one of our departmental bikers.

Research Interests

Since fall 2004 I have been the editor of Agora: Luther College in Conversation, which typically publishes three issues per annum and primarily focuses on articles by faculty and guests of the college. I am the sponsor of the Alpha Beta Xi Chapter of Sigma Tau Delta, the International English Honor Society and have served on the board of the International chapter since 1996, serving in various offices, including as President (2006-08).

My primary academic specializations are American literature, rhetoric, film, and studies in Chinese culture. At Luther I have taught both American literature surveys, the American novel, and January term courses on American humor, American war literature, American autobiography. I have offered seminars on “Mark Twain and Garrison Keillor” and “Reading the American Civil War.”

My book, Garrison Keillor. Twayne Publishers: New York. 1993; paper ed. Univ. of Iowa P, 1994, grew out of my interest in American humor, and I have also published on humorous writers such as James Thurber, Jean Shepherd, and Kurt Vonnegut. I am also interested in history and theory of rhetoric, and have taught the Luther English Department's rhetoric course regularly. I have been teaching an introduction to film since 2001.

After teaching about China in Luther’s Paideia I course for many years and a trip to that country in 1993, I became even more interested in Chinese language and literature and Chinese-American literature. In fall 1998 I directed the Hangzhou Study Abroad Program for the Lutheran Colleges China Consortium and I have taught “Chinese Journeys and Encounters”—a January term course in China—in 2003 and 2004.  I have taught English in China in summer in 2004, 2005, and in 2006 when I was a Dean for Global Language Villages in China.

Thoughts on Teaching

Though graduate school directs us towards thinking of research and publication as the primary index of achievement in this profession, I have learned that teaching is my real work. When asked what I do, I say I am a teacher.

I don't think we should imagine teaching to be the transmission of knowledge, as if it were water or some other substance, from one mind to another. I don't know what metaphor is best to describe the ideal class, but there have been many moments in the classroom (and usually these are after discussions on literature) when I and the students all know that we have collectively created a new awareness, and the rewards of study are in us and with us in the room.