Nathan Schneider

Much of Schneider's early work concerned the interrelation of religion, science, and politics, which grew out of his academic work in religious studies. He has written investigative articles on the John Templeton Foundation for The Nation{{cite magazine|url=http://www.thenation.com/article/god-science-and-philanthropy |title=God, Science and Philanthropy |magazine=The Nation |author=Nathan Schneider |date=June 3, 2010}} and The Chronicle of Higher Education.{{cite news|url=http://chronicle.com/article/The-Templeton-Effect/134018/ |title=The Templeton Effect |newspaper=The Chronicle of Higher Education |author=Nathan Schneider |date=September 3, 2012}}{{cite news|url=http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/brainiac/2012/09/high-rolling_ph.html |newspaper=The Boston Globe |title=High-Rolling Philosophers}} With the support of a Knight Grant for Reporting on Religion and American Public Life through USC's Annenberg School,{{Cite web|url=http://trans-missions.org/knight-grants-2012/schneider |title=Knight Grants for Reporting on Religion and American Public Life}} he did extensive reporting on the evangelical Christian philosopher and debater William Lane Craig, which resulted in articles that appeared in Commonweal, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and Killing the Buddha.

His first book, God in Proof: The Story of a Search from the Ancients to the Internet is a history of proofs for and against the existence of God, as well as a memoir of his own conversion to Catholicism as a teenager. A starred review in Booklist said, "Schneider makes an often dry subject quite companionable."{{Citation |author=Ray Olsen |publisher=Booklist |date=June 1, 2013 |title=God in Proof: The Story of a Search from the Ancients to the Internet}} In Religion Dispatches, Gordon Haber wrote, "Schneider defines the next generation of public intellectuals—fiercely articulate, indefatigably curious and Internet-savvy."{{Cite web |url=http://www.religiondispatches.org/books/atheologies/7133/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140604053142/http://www.religiondispatches.org/books/atheologies/7133/ |url-status=dead |archive-date=June 4, 2014 |author=Gordon Haber |publisher=Religion Dispatches |date=June 3, 2013 |title=The Search For Proofs For God's Existence }}

Schneider's writing on religion often deals with neglected traditions of political radicalism. Schneider's profile of literary critic Elaine Scarry for The Chronicle of Higher Education,{{cite news|url=http://chronicle.com/article/A-Literary-Scholars-Voice-in/144733/ |title=A Literary Scholar's Voice in the Wilderness |newspaper=The Chronicle Review |author=Nathan Schneider |date=February 7, 2014}}{{cite magazine|url=http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2014/02/21/what-were-loving-nascar-nukes-nobility/ |title=What We're Loving |magazine=The Paris Review |author=Nicole Rudick |date=February 21, 2014}} for instance, compared her scholarship with the religious anti-nuclear movement. In 2014 Al Jazeera America published his story of a Catholic nun with a secret ministry to the transgender community, which was applauded by Buzzfeed{{Cite web|url=https://www.buzzfeed.com/sandraeallen/9-feature-stories-were-reading-this-week-3-3 |title=9 Feature Stories We're Reading This Week |date=March 7, 2014 |publisher=Buzzfeed}} and The Advocate.{{Cite web|url=http://www.advocate.com/politics/religion/2014/03/07/meet-controversial-spiritual-adviser-trans-people |title=Meet the Controversial Spiritual Adviser to Trans People |publisher=The Advocate |author=Michael O'Loughlin|date=March 7, 2014 }}

In 2014, he was named a columnist for America, a national Catholic weekly.{{Cite web|url=https://twitter.com/Americaeditor/status/492072538399588352 |title=Tweet announcing Nathan Schneider as a columnist for America}}

Schneider was among the first journalists to cover the Occupy Wall Street movement during its planning stages and wrote about it for Harper's Magazine, The Nation, The New York Times, and other publications, as well as in his 2013 book Thank You, Anarchy: Notes from the Occupy Apocalypse, published by University of California Press. He claims that his coverage of Occupy Wall Street served as the basis for a scene about Occupy Wall Street in HBO's The Newsroom.{{cite magazine|url=http://harpers.org/blog/2013/08/occupied-by-the-newsroom/ |author=Nathan Schneider |date=August 22, 2013 |title= Occupied by the Newsroom |magazine=Harper's Magazine}} Democracy Now! regularly turned to him as a correspondent about the movement,{{Cite web|url=http://www.democracynow.org/appearances/nathan_schneider |publisher=Democracy Now! |title=Episodes featuring Nathan Schneider}} and he also appeared on NPR's The Brian Lehrer Show,{{Cite web|url=http://www.wnyc.org/story/162245-what-we-know-about-occupy-wall-street/ |publisher=The Brian Lehrer Show |title=What We Know About Occupy Wall Street}} Al Jazeera's Inside Story,{{Cite web|url=http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/insidestoryamericas/2012/04/20124187187119299.html |publisher=Al Jazeera |title=Is the Occupy movement being hijacked?}} and an oral history of the movement by Vanity Fair,{{cite magazine|url=http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/2012/02/occupy-wall-street-201202 |magazine=Vanity Fair |title=Revolution Number 99}} and Ezra Klein of The Washington Post referred to one of his articles as "the single best place to start" learning about the movement.{{cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/occupy-wall-street-a-primer/2011/08/25/gIQAbX7oHL_blog.html |newspaper=The Washington Post |title='Occupy Wall Street,' a primer |author=Ezra Klein}} Interviews with Schneider appear in two of the feature films made about the movement, American Autumn{{cite magazine|url=https://variety.com/2012/film/reviews/american-autumn-an-occudoc-1117948436/ |magazine=Variety |title=Review: 'American Autumn: An Occudoc'}} and 99%. Writer Rebecca Solnit wrote the foreword to Thank You, Anarchy, which was adapted into an article for the Los Angeles Times.{{cite news|url=http://www.latimes.com/opinion/commentary/la-oe-solnit-effects-of-the-occupy-movement-20130915,0,6536090.story |author=Rebecca Solnit |title=The Occupy movement: Drumbeats of change |date=September 15, 2013 |newspaper=Los Angeles Times}}

Religion continued to feature prominently in how Schneider covered the Occupy movement. According to Nick Pinto of Al Jazeera America, "Schneider's education and much of his writing are concerned with religion, and he relies heavily on Christian vocabulary to describe his experience in Occupy Wall Street."{{Cite web|url=http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2013/9/17/occupy-books.html |author=Nick Pinto |title=OWS: Studies of the movement |date=September 17, 2013}} He personally became involved in the movement as an early member of the group Occupy Catholics.{{cite news|url=http://ncronline.org/blogs/grace-margins/occupy-catholics-seeks-make-tradition-relevant-new-movement |author=Jamie Manson |title=Occupy Catholics seeks to make tradition relevant to a new movement |date=July 9, 2012 |newspaper=National Catholic Reporter}} An article on the book at Religious Left Law referred to Schneider as "is clearly a brilliant young thinker in the heart of what we might call the revitalization of the religious left."{{Cite web|url=http://www.religiousleftlaw.com/2013/12/nathan-schneiders-new-book-on-occupy-wall-street-thank-you-anarchy.html |author=Clark West |title=Nathan Schneider's new book on Occupy Wall Street: Thank You, Anarchy |date=December 4, 2013 |publisher=Religious Left Law}}

The cover of Thank You, Anarchy bears a quotation from a New York Observer article—"objective journalism, this is not"—referring not to the book but to the ambiguity of Schneider's role in the movement as a journalist and activist.{{cite news|url=http://observer.com/2011/09/media-coverage-on-occupy-wall-street/ |author=Anna Sanders and Drew Grant |title=Media Coverage: Must Reads |newspaper=The New York Observer |date=September 30, 2011}} In a later interview with Malcolm Harris of The New Inquiry, Schneider stated, "I agonized a lot about the participant-reporter thing, probably more than I should have."{{Cite web|url=http://thenewinquiry.com/features/i-%E2%99%A5-%E2%92%B6/ |author=Malcolm Harris |title=I ♥ Ⓐ |publisher=The New Inquiry |date=September 13, 2013}}

{{BLP primary sources|section|date=March 2025}}

Following his reporting on Occupy Wall Street, Schneider began to focus on stories related to co-operative economics. For Vice magazine, he wrote the most complete profile to date{{when|date=March 2025}} of Enric Duran, the Catalan activist and fugitive who founded the Catalan Integral Cooperative and Faircoop.{{cite magazine|url=https://www.vice.com/en/article/be-the-bank-you-want-to-see-in-the-world-0000626-v22n4/ |author=Nathan Schneider |title=On the Lam with Bank Robber Enric Duran |magazine=Vice |date=April 7, 2015}} For The Nation, he reported on "How Pope Francis Is Reviving Radical Catholic Economics."{{cite magazine|url=http://www.thenation.com/article/how-pope-francis-is-reviving-radical-catholic-economics/ |author=Nathan Schneider |title=How Pope Francis Is Reviving Radical Catholic Economics |magazine=The Nation |date=September 9, 2015}} He also published a number of articles and interviews on emerging cooperative business models for online platforms.

Schneider has been a leading advocate for platform cooperativism. In November 2015, together with New School professor Trebor Scholz, Schneider co-organized a two-day conference billed as "a coming-out party for the cooperative Internet."{{Cite web|url=http://platformcoop.net |title=Platform Cooperativism}} More than 1,000 people attended, including figures such as legal scholar Yochai Benkler, New York City Council Member Maria del Carmen Arroyo, and Zipcar founder Robin Chase. This led to the publication of a book, which Schneider co-edited with Scholz, Ours to Hack and to Own: The Rise of Platform Cooperativism, a New Vision for the Future of Work and a Fairer Internet, published in 2016 by OR Books.

His book Everything for Everyone: The Radical Tradition that Is Shaping the Next Economy was published in September 2018 by Nation Books. It collects several years of reporting on cooperative enterprise.

{{BLP unreferenced section|date=March 2025}}

After becoming a professor of media studies at the University of Colorado Boulder,{{when|date=March 2025}}{{citation needed|date=March 2025}} Schneider studied democratic governance in online spaces. He leads "Media Economies Design Lab", which "experiments with democratic ownership and governance in the online economy" and contributed to building a research group "Metagov" on online governance. His 2024 book Governable Spaces: Democratic Design for Online Life contends that democracy has been hindered by the dominant designs of social media and explores how to enable more democratic practice in daily online life.

{{BLP primary sources|section|date=March 2025}}

Schneider has served as an editor for two online publications: Waging Nonviolence, {{Cite web|url=http://wagingnonviolence.org/about/ |title=Waging Nonviolence: About}} "a source for original news and analysis about struggles for justice and peace", and Killing the Buddha,{{Cite news |url=http://killingthebuddha.com/about/ | title=Killing the Buddha: About| newspaper=Killing the Buddha}} "an online magazine of religion, culture, and politics".

Additionally, he has been an editor-at-large for The Immanent Frame,{{Cite web|url=http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/about/ |title=The Immanent Frame: About}} the online forum of the Social Science Research Council. He is a contributing editor for Religion Dispatches{{Cite web|url=http://www.religiondispatches.org/about/ |title=Religion Dispatches: About}} and Yes! magazine.

• Governable Spaces: Democratic Design for Online Life (University of California Press, 2024)
• Everything for Everyone: The Radical Tradition that Is Shaping the Next Economy (Nation Books, 2018)
• Ours to Hack and to Own: The Rise of Platform Cooperativism, a New Vision for the Future of Work and a Fairer Internet, edited with Trebor Scholz (OR Books, 2016)
• Thank You, Anarchy: Notes from the Occupy Apocalypse (University of California Press, September 2013)
• God in Proof: The Story of a Search from the Ancients to the Internet (University of California Press, June 2013)

{{Reflist}}

{{external media

|audio1 = [http://onbeing.org/program/nathan-schneider-the-fabric-of-our-identity/6911 Nathan Schneider — The Fabric of Our Identity] Krista Tippett's public radio show On Being

}}

• [http://nathanschneider.info Nathan Schneider's official website]
• [http://www.colorado.edu/cmci/people/media-studies/nathan-schneider Academic website at the University of Colorado Boulder]
• [http://www.thenation.com/authors/nathan-schneider Articles in The Nation]
• [https://wagingnonviolence.org/archives/ Waging Nonviolence website]

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Schneider, Nathan}}

Category:1984 births

Category:American male journalists

Category:American Roman Catholics

Category:Brown University alumni

Category:Cooperative theorists

Category:Cooperative advocates

Category:Converts to Roman Catholicism

Category:Living people

Category:University of California, Santa Barbara alumni

Category:University of Colorado Boulder faculty