Christopher Alexander is an Assistant Professor of English. He holds an M.A. in Creative Writing from Boston University and a Ph.D. in American Literature from The University at Buffalo with major study in the nineteenth-century roots of modern and postmodern poetry, critical theory, and science and literature. His current scholarly interests involve “Conceptual Poetry,” new media studies, and social systems theory, but he also writes on pedagogy and labor and the pedagogy of the difficult text. His year-long poetry project Panda is forthcoming in spring 2010 from Truck Books. In addition to Basic Writing and Composition, he teaches ENG270: Introduction to Poetry, ENN198: Creative Writing, ENG260: The Novel, and Liberal Arts 200: Media, New Media, and the Self or Liberal Arts 200: Intelligent Machines.

Schools Attended: The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (B.A. in English Literature), Boston University (M.A. in Creative Writing), and The University at Buffalo (M.A. and Ph.D. in American Literature).

Areas of Specialization: Modern and Postmodern Poetry, Critical Theory, Science and Literature.

Favorite Quote: "Observe the street, from time to time, with some concern for system.... You must set about it more slowly, almost stupidly. Force yourself to write down what is of no interest, what is most obvious, most common, most colorless." -- Georges Perec

Authors and Other Artists I Teach: Bertolt Brecht, Susan Glaspell, Walt Whitman, Kamau Brathwaite, Georges Perec, Anna Deavere Smith, Andy Warhol, Kenneth Goldsmith (Writing Through Literature); Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Frank O'Hara, John Ashbery, Adrienne Rich, and Amiri Baraka (Introduction to Poetry); Henry and William James, Toni Morrison (The Novel).

Methods I Teach: Close reading and explication de texte, the historical interpretation of literature, poetics (i.e., thinking about how art and literature is made, process rather than product). Favorite Composition Topics: Graffiti; the culture of work; food, commerce, and ecology.