Associate Professor
PhD McMaster
2022 Faculty of Humanities Award for Excellence in Teaching
Office: GLA 139
905 688 5550 x3886
ralexander@brocku.ca
Rob Alexander is a member of the Writing, Rhetoric, and Discourse Studies (WRDS) program in Brock’s Department of English Language and Literature.
At Brock, he has taught courses in rhetoric, literature, journalism, professional writing, creative writing, social justice, ecocriticism, and the history of linguistic thought. He has helped develop Brock’s Rhetoric and Professional Writing and Creative Writing programs.
A former reporter, he also holds a PhD in English. These two threads meet in his main area of teaching and research, literary journalism, a genre which combines the journalistic methods of fact gathering with the narrative techniques of fiction. Each year in his third year course on this subject, students try their hands at immersive reporting and have produced remarkable stories on topics ranging from death doulas to a start-up mobile pet grooming salon.
Since 2006, he has been involved with the International Association for Literary Journalism Studies, a scholarly organization with its own peer-reviewed journal (now in its fourteenth year), regular newsletter, annual conference, and almost 200 members from around the world. He is currently IALJS President.
Dr. Alexander is the author of numerous articles in this and other areas. With Christine Isager (University of Copenhagen), he is the editor of Fear and Loathing Worldwide: Gonzo Journalism Beyond Hunter S. Thompson (Bloomsbury, 2018). More recently, he and Willa McDonald of Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia completed the collection Literary Journalism and Social Justice which will be published by Palgrave Macmillan in September 2022.
He is currently editing volumes on Comics Journalism (with Leonora Flis, University of Ljubljana), scheduled for publication with Routledge in 2025, and the Literary Journalism/Creative Non-Fiction of East-Central Europe (with György Túry, Budapest Metropolitan University). He is also completing a book, tentatively titled Uncanny Subjects, exploring the psychoanalytic dimensions of journalist-source relationships in long form narrative journalism.
If you are interested in the practice or scholarship of nonfiction genres, including literary journalism or in any of his other areas of interest, you are welcome to contact him. For more on literary journalism, check out the Foreword podcast:
https://brocku-my.sharepoint.com/personal/ralexander_brocku_ca/Documents/Attachments/S2E02_Rob_Alexander_final_adgsr.mp3
Rhetoric
Literary Journalism
Creative Nonfiction
History of Linguistic Thought / Theory
“Introduction,” Literary Journalism and Social Justice. eds. Robert Alexander and Willa McDonald. London: Palgrave Macmillan, Forthcoming, September 2022.
“Literary Journalism and the Scales of Justice: A New Mobilities Approach,” in Literary Journalism and Social Justice. eds. Robert Alexander and Willa McDonald. London: Palgrave Macmillan, Forthcoming, September 2022.
“”Literary Journalism and Ecocriticism,” The Routledge Companion to American Literary Journalism, eds. William Dow and Roberta Maguire New York: Routledge. 2020. 482-497.
“Introduction,” Fear and Loathing Worldwide: Gonzo Journalism Beyond Hunter S. Thompson, eds. Robert Alexander and Christine Isager. New York: Bloomsbury, 2018. 1-10.
“Fear and Loathing in the Desert of the Real: Hunter S. Thompson, ‘Hannibal Elector,’ and the 2014 South African General Election,” Fear and Loathing Worldwide: Gonzo Journalism Beyond Hunter S. Thompson, eds. Robert Alexander and Christine Isager. New York: Bloomsbury, 2018. 243-267. Print.
“Staying News: Subjects, Types, and the Literariness of Literary Journalism,” Global Literary Journalism: Exploring the Literary Imagination, eds. Richard Keeble and John Tulloch. New York: Peter Lang, 2012. 191-06.
“‘The Right Kind of Eyes’: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas as a Novel of Journalistic Development,” Literary Journalism Studies 4.1 (2012): 19-36.
“‘My story is always escaping into other people’: Subjectivity, Objectivity, and the Double in American Literary Journalism,” Literary Journalism Studies 1.1 (2009): 57-66.
“‘The Language of the Naked Facts’: Joseph Priestley and the Apocalypse of Language,” Language and Communication 28.1 (2008): 21-35.
Literary Journalism and Social Justice. eds. Robert Alexander (Brock University) and Willa McDonald (Macquarie University). London: Palgrave Macmillan, Forthcoming, September 2022.
Fear and Loathing Worldwide: Gonzo Journalism Beyond Hunter S. Thompson. eds. Robert Alexander (Brock University) and Christine Isager (University of Copenhagen). New York: Bloomsbury, 2018.
Comics Journalism. eds. Robert Alexander and Leonora Flis (University of Nova Gorica). In progress
Uncanny Subjects. A monograph on the relationship between writers and their subjects in literary journalism. In progress.
Editor, “Teaching in the Time of COVID-19,” Literary Journalism, Oct. 2020, 10-28 (A sixteen-article special section in Literary Journalism (the IALJS newsletter). With contributions from an international slate of authors.) <https://s35767.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/IALJS-LIterary-Journalism-Newsletter-October-20201.pdf>
“Introduction,” “Teaching in the Time of COVID-19,” Literary Journalism, Oct. 2020, 10.
“A New Periodical is Worthy of Attention: The American Reader Debuts, and its Measure is Taken,” Literary Journalism (Fall 2013). 16-17.
“Foreword.” Factual Fictions: Narrative Truth and the Contemporary American Novel. By Leonora Flis. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2011. vii-ix.
“Literary Journalism as a Vehicle for Mobility Justice: The Case of Every Day We Live is the Future.” The 16th International Association for Literary Journalism Studies (IALJS) Conference, Universidad Alberto Hurtado, Santiago, Chile, 12-14 May, 2022.
“Literary Journalism and Ecocriticism,” The 15th International Association for Literary Journalism Studies (IALJS) Conference, University of Copenhagen, 20-23 May, 2021. (Virtual)
“‘The Keys Touch Me When I Type’: Adam Dickinson’s Chemical-microbial Found Poetry as Literary Journalism,” The 15th International Association for Literary Journalism Studies (IALJS) Conference, University of Copenhagen, 20-23 May, 2021. (Virtual)
“Literary Journalism and the Scales of Justice: A New Mobilities Approach,” The18th National Meeting of Researchers in Journalism, SBPJor – Associação Brasileira de Pesquisadores em Jornalismo, Universidade de Brasília, Nov. 3-6, 2020. (Virtual)
“Tom Wolfe Confronts the Question of Language or How, in The Kingdom of Speech, Story Rules.” The 14th International Association for Literary Journalism Studies (IALJS) Conference, Stony Brook University School of Journalism, Stony Brook, NY, 9-11 May, 2019.
“Slow Violence … Slow Journalism: Literary Journalism as a Response to Ecological Catastrophe.” The 13th International Association for Literary Journalism Studies (IALJS) Conference, Austrian Academy of Sciences/Alpen-Adria-Universität Institute for Comparative Media and Communication Studies. Vienna, Austria, 17-19 May 2018.
“‘A Perestroika of Feelings’: Liminal Animality in Svetlana Alexievich’s Voices from Chernobyl (1997).” American Comparative Literature Association (ACLA) 2017 Conference. Utrecht University, Netherlands, July 7-9, 2017.
“Alexievich’s Voices.” The 11th International Association for Literary Journalism Studies (IALJS) International Conference. Pontifíca Univrsidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul. Porto Alegre, Brazil, May 19-21, 2016.
“Fear and Loathing in the Desert of the Real: ‘Hannibal Elector’ and the 2014 South African general Election.” The 11th International Association for Literary Journalism Studies (IALJS) International Conference. Pontifíca Univrsidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul. Porto Alegre, Brazil, May 19-21, 2016.
“Epic Exceptionalism: History, Chronotope, and the New York Times Obituary.” Canadian Society for the Study of Rhetoric Annual Conference. University of Ottawa, Canada, June 3-5, 2015.
“Reporting the Umwelt: Literary Journalism, Ecological Justice, and the Felt Life of Animals.” University of Washington, American Comparative Literature Association 2015 Conference, March 27-29, 2015.
“‘If Colin Duffy and I were to Get Married’: The Rhetorical Function of Counterfactual Transgression in a Factual Genre.” Canadian Society for the Study of Rhetoric Annual Conference, 2014 Congress of the Canadian Federation of the Humanities and Social Sciences, Brock University, May 28-30, 2014.
“The License of the Legend: Trope, Type, and Transgression in Literary Journalism.” The American University of Paris.” Literary Journalism: Local, Regional, National, Global”, The 9th International Conference for Literary Journalism Studies, May 15-17, 2014.
“Fictitious Capital: Counterfactuality in Literary Journalism,” New York University. American Comparative Literature Association 2014 Conference, March 20-23, 2014.
“‘Exchanging Subjectivities’: Writer and Subject in Susan Orlean’s The Orchid Thief.” University of Tampere, Finland. The 8th International Conference, International Association for Literary Journalism Studies, May 16, 2013.
“De-mapping the Journalist-Source Relationship in Literary Journalism.” University of Toronto. American Comparative Literature Association 2013 Conference, April 4-7, 2013.
“Literary Journalism and the Collapse of Meaning.” Brown University, Providence, RI. American Comparative Literature Association 2012 Conference, March 29 – April 1, 2012.
“Literary Journalism in a Globalized World: Towards a Cosmopolitan Journalism.” Université Libre de Bruxelles. The 6th annual meeting of the International Association for Literary Journalism Studies, May 14, 2011.
“‘The Right Kind of Eyes’: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas as Novel of Journalistic Development.” Roehampton University, London, UK. The 5th International Conference, International Association for Literary Journalism Studies, May 21, 2010.
“‘Every journalist . . . knows . . .’: Janet Malcolm and the Journalistic Unconscious.” Northwestern University, Evanston, Ill., The 4th International Conference, International Association for Literary Journalism Studies, May 15, 2009.
“Staying New: Stereotype, Secrecy, and the Literariness of Literary Journalism.” Harvard University, Cambridge, MA., Annual Meeting of the American Comparative Literature Association, March 27, 2009.
“Fabricators Atone: Michael Finkel’s True Story and the Literary Journalism of Repair.” Universidade Técnica de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal, The 3rd International Conference, International Association for Literary Journalism Studies, May 17, 2008.
“Journalism and its Double: Subjectivity, Objectivity, and the Uncanny in Joe Gould’s Secret,” Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris (Sciences Po), The 2nd International Conference, International Association for Literary Journalism Studies, May 18, 2007.
“Double Trouble: Exorbitant Bodies, Monstrous Figures, and the Rhetoric of Satire in the Scriblerian’s ‘Double Mistress.'” York University, Canadian Society for the Study of Rhetoric Annual Meeting, May 28, 2006.
“Aggressive Incongruity: Exorbitant Bodies and Linguistic Monstrosity in the Scriberlian’s Double Mistress.” Princeton University, American Comparative Literature Association Annual Conference, March 25, 2006..
“Last Writes: Reading the Obituary as a Print News Genre.” San Diego Marriott Hotel and Marina, 2005 Joint Conference of the National Popular Culture and American Culture Associations, March 26, 2005.
“The Electric Sublime: Early Radio and the Discourse of Transcendence.” SUNY Buffalo, Mid-Atlantic Popular / American Culture Association (Inaugural session of the Radio and Sound Technologies Division), November 5, 2004.
“‘Your good dog, Richard’: Allegories of Reception in the Rhetoric of Richard Nixon.” Dalhousie University, Canadian Society for the Study of Rhetoric Annual Meeting, May 29, 2003.
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