James Brander Matthews was an American academic, writer, and literary critic born in New Orleans in 1852. He became the first full-time professor of dramatic literature at Columbia University in New York, a position that reflected his significant role in establishing theater as a subject worthy of formal academic study. His scholarly interests were broad, spanning from classical dramatists like Shakespeare and Molière to the works of Henrik Ibsen, French boulevard comedies, folk theater, and the new realism emerging in his own era. Matthews died in New York City in 1929.