Professor
Department of Philosophy
St. John Hall, Room B30-16
Queens Campus
St. John’s University
8000 Utopia Parkway
Queens, NY 11439
Phone: (718) 990-5296
Fax: (718) 990-1907
snyderl@stjohns.edu
Educational Background
- Ph.D., Philosophy, Johns Hopkins University, 1996
- M.A., Philosophy, Johns Hopkins University, 1992
- Certificate, History and Philosophy of Science, Johns Hopkins
University, 1991
- B.A., summa cum laude, Philosophy, Brandeis University,
1987
- B.A., summa cum laude, History of Western Thought, Brandeis
University, 1987
Areas Of Interest
- History of philosophy of science
- Philosophy of science
- Intellectual history
Profile
Fulbright Scholar Laura J. Snyder is Professor of Philosophy
at St. John's University in New York City. She received her B.A.
from Brandeis University and her M.A. and Ph.D., as well as a
Certificate in History and Philosophy of Science, from The Johns
Hopkins University. Snyder is a Life Member of Clare Hall College,
Cambridge, and served as President of the International Society for
the History of Philosophy of Science (HOPOS) in 2009 and 2010. Her
most recent book, The Philosophical Breakfast Club: Four Remarkable
Friends who Transformed Science and Changed the World (Broadway
Books, 2011; paperback 2012), was a Scientific American Notable
Book, an Official Selection of the TED Book Club, and winner of the
2011 Royal Institution of Australia Poll for Favorite Science Book.
It appeared in Italian as Il Club dei Filosofi che Volevano
Cambiare il Mondo (Newton Compton, 2011). She is a frequent
contributor to The Wall Street Journal book review section.
In 2012 Snyder gave a
TED talk at the TED Global meeting in Edinburgh.
Snyder is also the author of Reforming Philosophy: A Victorian
Debate on Science and Society (University of Chicago Press, 2006).
She is currently writing a book about the relation between science,
especially optics, and art in the seventeenth century.
Praise for The Philosophical Breakfast Club:
"In Ms. Snyder's telling, the lives and ideas of these men come
across as fit for Masterpiece Theatre." Wall Street
Journal
"As wide-ranging and anecdotal, as excited and exciting, as
those long-ago Sunday-morning conversations at Cambridge. A natural
successor to Jenny Uglow's The Lunar Men and Richard
Holmes's The Age of Wonder." The Washington
Post
"Deftly recreates this age of marvels through the lives of four
remarkable Victorian men. The members of the Philosophical
Breakfast Club left behind some lavish gifts. This volume offers
them up delightfully" The Economist
"A fascinating story, one told with considerable charm" The
Washington Times
"Snyder succeeds famously in evoking the excitement, variety and
wide-open sense of possibility of the scientific life in
ninteenth-century Britain" American Scientist
"Snyder writes with the depth of a scholar, and the beauty of a
novelist" Science News
(More reviews can be found at laurajsnyder.com)