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Praise for Cosmoetica and Dan Schneider: His reviews have been excerpted for a blurb for Yale University Press and his analysis is referenced in the PBS series POV's brochure (p.26) on The Up Series. His writing and criticism has been lauded in the mainstream and alternative press, nationally and internationally, in the Far East and the U.K, by diverse arts and film blogs and websites, as well as by America's most powerful critic, Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times and several television film review shows.
Chin Jian Xiong, 2017: 'The more I read Dan Schneider, the more I feel as though a man who is Shakespeare, Nietzsche, Rilke, Robinson Jeffers, and Chekhov in a single entity has been walking the Earth for the last century and this one – and only a small percentage of the world has noticed. His brutal insight on the human condition is unsurpassed, but he has more poesy than the German mad philosopher, and he’s also more internally stable than him. I’ve already gone into his penetrating insights about human struggle, first world problems, existential questions of fluid identity, the vices of Malcolm X, the nature of Love, and the Masculinity embedded in war. He sees the entire world and the human condition fully.'
- https://constructedheroisms.wordpress.com/2017/01/22/dan-schneiders-poem-the-mothman/
Theologian Jeffrey Wattles, 2015: 'Today I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Dan Schneider, a widely successful various arts and culture host. Here’s the link to the interview.
What a cool way to meet someone! Dan is highly intelligent and efficient, well read in lots of areas of science and in the arts. He reviews films and writes poetry; I get the impression that he is involved in the practice of other arts as well….I take it that interviews like that are a major portion of what he does. But he is also interested big questions about the way of living…. He began with planned questions and then improvised. The planned questions got things going in a responsible and diverse way from one segment to the next. Astutely, vibrantly, he probed each major category in this website–truth, beauty, and goodness. His spontaneous follow-up questions I found particularly thrilling in their weave of strands of theological thought, observations of the way our society is going, and personal experience. I learned today that he grew up Missouri Synod Lutheran, being taught that humans have no free will, and that God sends adulterers, murderers, and other comparably serious sinners to everlasting torment in hell. He is now agnostic. He mentioned cherishing Melville’s Moby Dick as a novel of universal significance; and expressed great appreciation for Mozart and Beethoven. Late in the interview, you’ll hear about the inspiring death of his father and then his reaction to the heavy make-up that the funeral parlor put on him, disguising his emaciated state after three years of decline with cancer. His question in the interview made it natural for me to share my extraordinary spiritual experience after my father’s death. From start to finish, the interview was vigorous, challenging, and real. I loved it….For more about Dan Schneider’s work, visit http://www.cosmoetica.com/. I love this man.
- http://anewphilosophyofliving.com/my-youtube-interview-with-dan-schneider/
Roger Ebert praises Dan Schneider's Film Criticism and Website:
Ebert calls Dan Schneider 'a considerable critic....''; that Dan Schneider (in regards to Ebert's writings) 'may well be correct in some aspects. What his analysis gives me is a renewed respect and curiosity about his own work....'; he states, 'Dan Schneider is observant, smart, and makes every effort to be fair.' He states, 'I conclude he is more analytical and less visceral that I am,' Ebert ends his praise, stating, 'What is remarkable about these many words is that Schneider keeps an open mind, approaches each film afresh, and doesn't always repeat the same judgments. An ideal critic tries to start over again with every review.' -12/9/09, from 'Who do you read? Good Roger or Bad Roger?', by Roger Ebert
Dan Schneider's film criticism analyzed in a Woody Allen film book:
'It makes sense to pair Roger Ebert alongside Dan Schneider, for while the former is a good writer and primarily emotional, Dan Schneider is a great writer and above all cerebral.
….the important thing -- as Ebert once declared -- is that the man is fair, and that his claims are well-argued, diverse, and incredibly consistent. This is evident in his essays on everything from conspiracist mythology (wherein the JFK “conspiracy” is upheld, and alien abductions rejected), to William F. Buckley[19] (wherein Schneider, a working-class Centrist, praises the man’s intelligence and wit, even as he disagrees with most of his positions), his defense of It’s a Wonderful Life on purely artistic grounds, all the while combining such with personal memoir[20], a take-down of poetic ‘meter’ (vis-a-vis poetic music)[21], a poem-by-poem comparison between Shakespeare and Wallace Stevens[22] (down to a rating for every one of Shakespeare’s sonnets), and a “Great Films” list[23], a la Roger Ebert, that avoids the needless obscurity and one-upmanship of many ‘alternative’ lists, but keeps things -- films, too! -- to a minimum.
….Note, for instance, Schneider’s comment on Stardust Memories in 2001: that while “it’s been tarred as a rip-off of Federico Fellini’s 8½...I’ve never seen that film so I take Woody’s film for itself.” This soon changed, but what’s notable this is that he’s wise enough to understand such things cannot truly impact a differentiated work of art, ‘influenced’ or not.
….And while Pauline Kael’s writing is often autobiographical to a fault, as it engages Kael far more than the work, itself, both Roger Ebert and Dan Schneider prove that autobiography is possible, and can enrich a critique with a literary ‘twist’ that nonetheless speaks to the review’s central posits without cheapening or evading them….Too often, ‘vindication’ is felt only when one’s right. This is unfortunate, as in between right and wrong, there is the even more important task of cogitation, and the search for novel ideas. In fact, it is this suggestiveness that often leads to great discovery (accidental, or not). Yet it is the views, themselves, that need some sort of consistency, an umbrella, as it were, beyond mere ‘correctness’, to corral them into something bigger and more profound. This is precisely what Schneider does, and why his expansiveness works over the course of so many reviews….This is, perhaps, the reason why Roger Ebert decided to write an essay on Schneider’s work, and why some of Ebert’s own readers ultimately dissented from the critical consensus re: Stardust Memories. And although such things are only part of the picture, the (many) discussions of that film prove that Schneider is becoming right -- or rather, is finally being perceived as such -- no matter how slow such processes go.'
- from Woody Allen: Reel To Real, 2014, by Alex Sheremet: http://www.woodyallenreel2real.com/critics2.html
....helpful criticisms regarding his fellow poets and reviewers. If you were looking for someone willing to call T. S. Eliot “1 of the most grossly overrated writers in the history of the world, & the English language,” Schneider is your man. His site includes similarly jolly commentary on a large number of contemporary writers. - The New York Times
Schneider is a fervent, naturally agitated character, and he seems possessed of a boundless curiosity that stretches from the most obscure backwaters of science and history to the dimmest and most short-lived pop-culture comets….Schneider's peculiar temperament has more in common with unregenerate early punk rockers like Lou Reed and John Lydon….It's surprising how many of Schneider's poems reveal a frequently poignant strain of sentimentality and nostalgia, a continued fascination with the lost pop culture of his childhood. He is also an obsessive sonneteer, and can write tight, carefully crafted short poems that demonstrate the emotional sensitivity that many of his admirers suspect he doesn't entirely trust.- Dan Schneider vs. The Rest Of The World, City Pages
In 2015, Schneider was featured on Excellence Reporter and asked the Meaning of Life. He replied:
As for meaning in life — there is none. The secret of life is there is no secret. Not only is there no meaning, THERE CAN be no meaning to life. Meaning is something only an individual can erect. The cosmos is just there. Were one to posit a God or creator, even an alien child just playing with cosmic Legos, what meaning could there be? And what would be the meaning of the cosmic child’s play and existence?
The most pertinent and powerful fact of the human condition is that we are the creators and arbiters of our own lives and meaning.
....for a clearly anti-establishment take on the academic poetry scene, as well as fearless, brilliant assessments of many poets, including the famous, with which you may or may not agree (again, it's informed debate that spurs our progress)- try Dan Schneider's www.cosmoetica.com. -page 192 of On Writing Poetry, by Al Rocheleau, Shantih Press, © 2010, published 2011, ISBN 9-780615-396439
....www.Cosmoetica.com.... the most visited, unaffiliated literary website online. He [Dan Schneider] is a poet, critic, essayist and fiction writer first profiled in City Pages in 1999. He is known for his trenchant, outspoken views, peerless criticism, and writerly excellence. Schneider is also known for championing Neglected Poets, stands against bad writing, academia, Political Correctness, and for his ‘re-discovery’ of expatriate African-American poet James A. Emanuel. Cosmoetica has served as the launching pad for a number of other promising writers, and has grown in popularity due to its popular essays.... - Nationmaster.com
Cosmoetica is also home to The Dan Schneider Interviews....(b)elieve me, you won’t find more in-depth and high-minded discussions this side of a MENSA jamboree....You’ll especially love Dan Schneider if you’re tired of the same old crap that Hollywood has been pumping out in recent years....This is one moviegoer who really knows what he’s talking about....In fact, you could say that he’s relentless when it comes to getting his point across. On the other hand, every thought is backed up by sentence after sentence of explanation, and those looking for an in-depth movie review or film interview will have plenty to feast upon. And he’s even got the respect of Roger Ebert. - Only Good Movies
I think it is high time every lover of contemporary poetry reads Dan Schneider’s essays on www.cosmoetica.com. Why? For starters, he is goddamn refreshing in his unashamed way of putting just about any critically-acclaimed or seriously up-and-coming poet in his or her place by making us see just how overrated he believes so many of them are....you may just be unable to help yourself but want to agree with Schneider in any case. He is that fun to read, as well as potentially edifying. - 'Dan Schneider Connects The Dots', Quarterly Literary Review Singapore
(Dan Schneider) hates bullshit, he feels passionately about his subject, and is not afraid to speak his mind. He reads stuff in great detail, thinks about it hard, and is totally undeterred by PC. All of these, in my book, are virtues.- 'Even grumpier than me!'- Grumpy Old Bookman
In 2012, Schneider was asked to join the think tank, The Lifeboat Foundation, to serve as an advisor on their Media & Arts Board and their Sustainability Board.