Susan Grace Shillinglaw is an American literary scholar and professor emerita of English and comparative literature at San José State University (SJSU), where she taught for 37 years and directed the universityâÂÂs Center for Steinbeck Studies for 18 years. She is known for her work on John Steinbeck, having served as director of the Martha Heasley Cox Center for Steinbeck Studies and as scholar-in-residence and director of the National Steinbeck Center in Salinas, California, from 2015 to 2018 and has been described by the California State University system as one of the leading scholars of SteinbeckâÂÂs work.
Shillinglaw was born in New Hampton, Iowa and raised in Englewood, Colorado. She earned her B.A. in art and English from Cornell College in 1973, followed by an M.A. (1976) and Ph.D. in American literature (1985) from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her doctoral dissertation, completed in 1985, was titled The Art of CooperâÂÂs Landscapes: Identity, Theme, and Structure in the Leatherstocking Tales and examined landscape and narrative structure in the fiction of James Fenimore Cooper.
Shillinglaw began teaching at Wake Forest University (1977âÂÂ1981), followed by positions at Canisius College and the Buffalo Seminary in New York (1981âÂÂ1984). She joined San José State University in 1984, where she remained on the English and comparative literature faculty until her retirement in 2021.
At SJSU, she served as director of the Martha Heasley Cox Center for Steinbeck Studies from 1987 to 2005. In that position she organized several international conferences on SteinbeckâÂÂs work, edited the award-winning Steinbeck Newsletter, and co-founded the Steinbeck Award, given to artists, writers and activists who represent SteinbeckâÂÂs empathetic, democratic vision, with the first awardee being Bruce Springsteen in 1997. she has continued to serve on the CenterâÂÂs board since 2012.
For over a decade, beginning in 2005, she was scholar-in-residence and later Director (2015âÂÂ2018) of the National Steinbeck Center in Salinas, California.
She has also been a visiting professor at Stanford UniversityâÂÂs Hopkins Marine Station, co-teaching the interdisciplinary course Holistic Biology with marine biologist William Gilly between 2005 and 2012; as a visiting professor, she continues to teach with Professor Gilly at Hopkins. Since 2012, she has taught courses regularly for the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) at CSU Monterey Bay.
Shillinglaw has co-directed seven National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) summer institutes for schoolteachers on Steinbeck's work, âÂÂJohn Steinbeck, The Voice of a Region, A Voice for America.
She is also a volunteer docent at Robinson Jeffers's Tor House and a member of the board of the Tor House Foundation.
Shillinglaw became scholar-in-residence at the National Steinbeck Center in Salinas, California, in 2005, contributing to public interpretation of SteinbeckâÂÂs work and legacy for the yearly Steinbeck Festival and for programs during the 75th anniversary of The Grapes of Wrath.
She was appointed director of the center in 2015 and served until her resignation in 2018. Following her departure, she returned to research, writing and teaching related to Steinbeck and other writers.
Shillinglaw has co-directed multiple teacher-focused summer institutes on Steinbeck, supported by grants from the U.S. National Endowment for the Humanities. These three-week programs, first held in 2007, brought middle- and high-school teachers to CaliforniaâÂÂs Monterey region for lectures, workshops and field-based study connecting SteinbeckâÂÂs writing to place,ecology and history.
Shillinglaw is widely regarded as a leading figure in Steinbeck scholarship. A California State University profile describes her as among the foremost scholars of SteinbeckâÂÂs work, noting her influence on both academic research and public humanities programming. Cornell College has similarly referred to her as a leading Steinbeck scholar, awarding her the collegeâÂÂs Distinguished Achievement Award in 2013.
Shillinglaw's research examines Steinbeck's engagement with ecology, politics, gender, and place. Her scholarship examines the ways in which Steinbeck's fiction brings together scientific inquiry, spiritual reflection, and social conscience. She has published on Steinbeck's relationships with his first wife, Carol Henning Steinbeck, and with his close friend, Edward F. Ricketts. Her research also focuses on SteinbeckâÂÂs collaborations with figures associated the social, political and ecological dimensions of his fiction and nonfiction. Early in her career, she also wrote on American literary realism and on James Fenimore Cooper.
Shillinglaw frequently contributes to public discussions of Steinbeck through lectures, interviews and essays, including features in the Smithsonian magazine , the Washington Post, and National Endowment for the Humanities publications.
Her major books include On Reading The Grapes of Wrath, Carol and John Steinbeck: Portrait of a Marriage, A Journey into Steinbeck's California and Steinbeck's Landscapes. Each combines close reading, archival research, and cultural history to show how place, friendship (especially Steinbeck's relationship with Edward F. Ricketts), and politics shaped Steinbeck's writing.
She has also co-edited interdisciplinary volumes such as Steinbeck and the Environment Beyond Boundaries: Rereading John Steinbeck, as well as SteinbeckâÂÂs Uneasy America: Rereading Travels with Charley. She also wrote introductions for Penguin Classics, including Cannery Row, Of Mice and Men, A Russian Journal, The Winter of Our Discontent, and A Portable Steinbeck.
Shillinglaw has written and edited numerous books and essays on Steinbeck and American literature.