Ben Alexander, Assistant Professor
Rosenthal Library, Gradate School of Library and Information Studies Queens College, The City University of New York Phone: (718) 997-3757 Fax: (718) 997-3797 Email: Benjamin.Alexander@qc.cuny.edu
Education
Ph.D. (2005) The Graduate School and University Center, The City University of New York. British and American Literature
M.A. (2000) Columbia University. British and American Literature
B.S. (1994) Clark University. British and American Literature
Work Experience
Assistant Professor (2007 - ) Graduate School of Library and Information Studies, Queens College, The City University of New York
Post-Doctoral Scholar (2005 – 2007) Graduate School of Information Studies,The University of California, Los Angeles
Manuscripts Specialist (2003 – 2005) The Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library
Archivist, The Yaddo Records (2000 – 2003) The Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library
Research and Professional Interests
My research interests focus on Archival Theory and Practice, the History of Books and Printing, as well as 20 th century American Intellectual and Creative History. In particular, I am interested in the evidences of intellectual and creative thought at there point of material production and in studying the transmition of such interests across time and distance. I am similarly interested in international perspectives on the relationship between materiality and the formation of cultural memory and community identity.
Selected Publications
Monographs
Yaddo: A Creative History .Forthcoming, The University of Georgia Press
Communities and their Archives: Documenting and Sustaining Memory . Co-editor. Forthcoming, FACET Publications (UK).
Articles
“'For Posterity': The Private Audio Recordings of Louis Armstrong” American Archivist , Spring 2008
“The Lowell Affair” The New England Quarterly . December, 2008.
“Excluding Archival Silences: Oral History and Historical Absence” Archival Science , March 2006
“The Yaddo Records, How an Institutional Archive Reveals Creative Insight” English Studies in Canada , July 2004
Reviews
Archives: Recording Keeping in Society . American Archivist , Spring 2007
Presentations
Invited Lectures
November 2006, The University of Glasgow From Memory to History: The Archive and the Shapes of Historiography
“For Posterity”: The Private Audio Recordings of Louis Armstrong October 2006, Claremont Graduate University
“For Posterity”: The Private Audio Recordings of Louis Armstrong September 2006, The University of Nevada Los Vegas
Yaddo: A Creative History December 2006, The New York Public Library The Yaddo Records and the Shaping of a Creative Culture
Selected Workshops and Institutes
January 2007, The University of California Los Angeles. Friday Forum “These Fragments”: A Critical Discussion of Books and Archives .
November 2006. Modernist Studies Association Annual Conference, Tulsa, Ok.
Pre-conference Seminar Leader, Beyond the Creative Manuscript: Expanding the Search for Creative Memory . Participants included Professors from: University of Alberta, University of Auckland, Duke University, Providence College, University of Sydney, and The University of Washington.
Selected Conference Presentations
August 2008, Fourth International Conference on the History of Records and Archives, The University of Western Australia, Perth.
Communities and their Archives: Documenting and Sustaining Memory July 2008, Archive Fervour / Archive Fever , The University of Wales, Aberystwyth.
“Forty or so Acres”: The Archive and the Formation of Literary Intention January 2008, Modern Language Association Annual Conference, Chicago, Ill.
Archive Trouble October 2006, Modernist Studies Association Annual Conference, Tulsa, OK
Invited Panelist: “Open Forum on Teaching: The Archive and the College Classroom.” Panelists include: Michael Coyle, Professor of English, Colgate University; Jerome McGann, University Professor and John Stewart Bryan Professor of English, The University of Virginia; Christine Miller, Professor, Department Chair and Edward H. Butler Endowed Chair in English, The State University of New York Albany.
April 2006, College English Association Annual Conference, San Antonio, TX “These Fragments”: The Material History of The Waste Land
April 2006, O'Connor and Other Georgia Writers , Georgia College and State University “If Only She Were Civil”: Katherine Anne Porter, Carson McCullers and Yaddo
November 2005, Modernist Studies Association Annual Conference, Chicago, IL Archive and Intention in Modern Literature , Panel Chair. Panelists included: Jeremy Braddock, Assistant Professor, Princeton University; Damien Keane, Assistant Professor, SUNY Buffalo; Dominic Williams, Post-Doctoral Scholar, Leeds University, UK
June 2005, Victorians and Moderns , Centre for Victorian Studies, University of Leeds, UK Contested Pages: Alfred Tennyson, T.S. Eliot and The Waste Land Manuscripts
May 2005, Communities in Crisis , The University of South Carolina The Lowell Affair August, 2004, International Archives Congress, Vienna, Austria
Revealing Cultural Silences: Oral History and Archival Absence June, 2004, Back to Bloomsbury , International Virginia Woolf Society Annual Conference, London, UK
Clarissa Dalloway's Personal Waste Land: Revealing T.S. Eliot's Presence in Mrs. Dalloway June, 2004, James T. Farrell Centenary Conference , American University of Paris, France
“For the Opportunity to Have Completed this Book”: James T. Farrell, Studs Lonigan , and Yaddo August, 2003, Society of American Archivists Annual Conference, Los Angeles, CA. Oral History and the Problematic Material Record
Selected Course Taught
Fall, 2007, Archives and Manuscripts , Queens College GSLIS
Fall, 2007, Preservation , Queens College GSLIS
Spring 2007, Advanced Seminar in Archival Arrangement and Description , UCLA SI Winter 2007, The Printed Book in Europe, 1550 – 1950 , UCLA SI
Fall 2006, Historical Methodologies , UCLA SI
Spring 2006 , American Archives and Manuscripts , UCLA SI
Fall 2005, A Social History of Books and Printing , UCLA SI
Summer 2005, The History of Books and Printing , Queens College, GSLIS
Spring 2005, American Studies, Queens College Department of English
Fall 2004, American Literature 1900 – 1950, Queens College Department of English
Fall 2004, Introduction to Shakespeare, Queens College Department of English
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