Howard Schaap

Howard Schaap serves as professor of English at Dordt University, teaching courses such as Advanced Nonfiction Writing, Multicultural American Literature, and Environmental Literature and Ethics.

“Language intensifies life, naming and giving shape to our experience,” says Schaap. “In reading and writing, I'm trying to make ever fuller sense of the world and our place in it—and in teaching writing, I hope to create space for students to do the same.”

His writing often centers on the intersection of place and faith. Recent essays include “How Reading Calvin’s Institutes Made Sense of a Glioblastoma” in Reformed Journal, and “The Place of Imagination in Being Placed” in In All Things. He presented the academic paper, "What We Talk About When We Talk About Faith: Augustinian Spiritual Writing and Meghan O’Gieblyn’s Interior States," at the Midwest Regional Conference on Christianity and Literature at Wheaton College in 2023. His first book, Brooding Upon the Waters, explores place, history, and faith through stories of farming, fishing, and failure in America’s lost landscape, the tall grass prairie of the Upper Midwest.

“As humans made in the image of God, we are called to be ‘sub-creators’ in the world, and one of the ways we do that is through language. And just as the Word became flesh and lived among us in the ultimate act of love, we have a responsibility to make the word flesh for others in what we write, say, and do.”

Outside of the classroom, Schaap is a member of the Academic Senate, mentor to new faculty, and sponsor of the student writing club. In his free time, he enjoys fishing, trying new foods with his wife, Sy, and being a track Dad.

Education:

• MFA in Creative Nonfiction, Seattle Pacific, 2014
• MA English Literature, South Dakota Statue University, 2008