Shirley Samuels is an American academic. She is the Thomas and Dorothy Litwin Professor of American Studies. Currently Picket Family Chair of the Literatures in English Department, she was formerly director of American Studies at Cornell University and is known for her work on American literature and culture.
Samuels has a B.A. (1977), M.A. (1981), and Ph.D. (1986) from the University of California, Berkeley. Following her Ph.D. she was an assistant professor at Princeton University. She moved to Cornell University in 1986 and was promoted to full professor in 1998. From 2000 until 2001 she was the Fletcher Brown Professor of Humanities at the University of Delaware. From 2009 until 2015, she chaired the History of Art Department, and from 2009 until 2012 she was dean of the Flora Rose House on the Cornell University campus.
Samuels' work includes visual studies where she focuses on challenges with photographic representation of the American Civil War.
Samuels has been a fellow at the American Antiquarian Society in the Northeast Modern Language Association (NEMLA) division. She has also had fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies, the Society for the Humanities, and the Library Company of Philadelphia. In 2015-2016, she was the Los Angeles Times distinguished fellow at the Huntington Library. In 2020 she was named a Quarry Farm Fellow by the Center For Mark Twain Studies.