Elizabeth Alexander | Biography & CV

Elizabeth Alexander is a poet, essayist, playwright, and teacher. She has published five books of poems: The Venus Hottentot (1990), Body of Life (1996), Antebellum Dream Book (2001), American Sublime (2005), which was one of three finalists for the Pulitzer Prize and was one of the American Library Association’s “Notable Books of the Year;” and, most recently, her first young adult collection (co-authored with Marilyn Nelson), Miss Crandall’s School for Young Ladies and Little Misses of Color (2008 Connecticut Book Award). Her two collections of essays are The Black Interior (2004) and Power and Possibility (2007), and her play, “Diva Studies,” was produced at the Yale School of Drama. She has also composed words for musical projects with composers Elana Ruehr and Lewis Spratlan. In 2009, she composed and delivered “Praise Song for the Day” for the inauguration of President Barack Obama.

Her work echoes the inflections of earlier generations, as it foretells new artistic directions for her contemporaries as well as future poets. In several anthologies of American poetry, Alexander’s work concludes the twentieth century, while in others she serves as the inaugural poet for a new generation of twenty-first century voices. Her poems are included in dozens of collections and have been translated into Spanish, German, Italian, Arabic and Bengali.

Professor Alexander is the first recipient of the Alphonse Fletcher, Sr. Fellowship for work that “contributes to improving race relations in American society and furthers the broad social goals of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision of 1954.” She is the 2007 winner of the first Jackson Prize for Poetry, awarded by Poets and Writers. Other awards include a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, two Pushcart Prizes, the George Kent Award, given by Gwendolyn Brooks, and a Guggenheim fellowship. Most recently, Elizabeth Alexander was named an Anisfield-Wolf Book Award winner for her lifetime achievement in poetry.

For over twenty years, Elizabeth Alexander has taught and mentored her students at some of the nation’s most well-respected colleges and universities including Haverford College, Northwestern University, University of Chicago, University of Pennsylvania, and Smith College. At the University of Chicago, she received the Quantrell Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, the oldest and most prestigious teaching award that the university presents. Her attitude toward mentorship informs her teaching outside of the academy as well. In addition to her work at colleges and universities, Elizabeth Alexander has taught numerous poetry workshops. Most significantly, serving as both faculty and honorary director, Alexander has been an integral member of Cave Canem, an organization dedicated to the development and endurance of African American poetic voices. At her current institutional home, Yale University, where she is chair of African American Studies, she continues to serve her students as both teacher and mentor.

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CURRICULUM VITAE
(September 2011)
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Elizabeth Alexander

Thomas E. Donnelley Professor of African American Studies
African American Studies Department
Yale University
81 Wall Street
New Haven, CT 06510

EDUCATION 1984 1987 1992	BA, 1984, Yale University MA, 1987, Boston University Ph.D., 1992, University of Pennsylvania
ACADEMIC POSITIONS 2010- 2009- 2005- 2000-2005 1997-1999 1997-1999 1991-1997 1990-1991	Thomas E. Donnelley Professor of African American Studies, Yale University Chair, African American Studies Department, Yale University Professor, Departments of African American Studies, American Studeis and English, Yale University Associate Professor (Adjunct), African American Studies Department, Yale University Grace Hazard Conkling Poet-in Residence, Smith College Inaugural Director, The Poetry Center at Smith College Assistant Professor, English Department, University of Chicago Dissertation Fellow, English Department, Haverford College
PUBLICATIONS I. Books	“Cemetery for the Illustrious Negro Dead: A Prehistory of African American Studies” (in progress) Crave Radiance: New and Selected Poems 1990-2010, Graywolf Press, 2010 (Winner, Paterson Prize for Poetry; nominee, Hurston-Wright Award fro Poetry) Praise Song for the Day (chapbook), Graywolf Press, 2009 Canto de Alabanza por el Dia (chapbook; translated with Rodrigo Rojas), Graywolf Press, 2009 Poems in Conversation and a Conversation, (with Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon), Slapering Hol Press, 2008 Power and Possibility: Essay, Reviews, Interviews. University of Michigan Press, Poets on Poetry Series, 2007 Miss Crandall’s School for Young Ladies and Little Misses of Color, (with Marilyn Nelson. Winner, Connecticut Book Award) Front Street Press, 2007 American Blue: Selected Poems, Bloodaxe Books (U.K.), 2006 American Sublime, Graywolf Press, 2005 (Pulitzer Prize finalist, American Library Association 25 Notable Books of the Year) The Black Interior: Essays, Graywolf Press, 2004 (Finalist for best non-fiction, Hurston-Wright Foundation, 2005) Antebellum Dream Book, Graywolf Press, 2001 (Village Voice 25 Best Books of 2001) Body of Life, Tia Chucha Press, 1996 The Venus Hottentot, University Press of Virginia, Callaloo Poetry Series, 1990. Reissued by Graywolf Press, 2004
II. Edited Volumes	“12x12: American Poetry Today” (in progress) “The Library of American Book of African-American Poetry” (in progress) The Essential Gwendolyn Brooks, ed. and introduction, Library of America “American Poetry Project,” 2005 Love's Instruments by Melvin Dixon, introduction by Elizabeth Alexander. Tia Chucha Press, 1995
III. Essays (selected)	“Free Black Men,” in “The New Face of Race,” ed. Ken Mack and Guy-Uriel Charles, The New Press (forthcoming) “We Were Here and We Are Here: The Cave Canem Poetry Workshop,” in Poetry in Communications, ed. Kate Coles, Poetry Foundation, 2011 “Harlem Plays the Best Ball in the World,” in Harlem: A Century in Images, ed. Thelma Golden, Rizzoli, 2010 “Jean Toomer Travels to Sparta, Georgia,” New Literary History of America, ed. Werner Sollors and Greil Marcus, Harvard UP, 2009 “My Grangmother's Hair,” in The Black Body, ed. Meri Nana-Amah Danquah, Seven Stories Press, 2009 “Second Spring,” Meridel LeSeuer essay, WaterStone, Fall 2007 “Five Portrait,” in Deb Willis, ed, Let Your Motto Be Resistance: African American Portraits,* Smithsonian and ICP exhibition and catalogue, 2007 “Contemporary African-American Poetics,” (with Harryette Mullen) in Cave Canem Tenth Anniversary Anthology, ed. Toi Derricotte and Cornelius Eady, University of Michigan Press 2006 “The Negro Digs Up Her Past,” SAQ, Fall 2005 “Some White Men,” in Some of My Best Friends: Writings on Interracial Friendships, ed. Emily Bernard, HarperCollins, 2004 “The Genius of Romare Bearden,” in Something All Our Own: The Grant Hill Collection of African-American Art, ed. Alvia Wardlaw, Duke University Press, 2003 “‘The Space Between’: On Etheridge Knight” in Poetry Speaks, ed. Elise Paschen and Rebecca Presson Mosby, Sourcebooks, Inc., 2001 “Meditations on ‘Mecca’: Gwendolyn Brooks and the Responsibilities of the Black Poet,” in By Herself, Women Reclaim Poetry, ed. Molly McQuade, Graywolf Press, 2000. Also published in Associated Writing Programs Chronicle, March 2000 “Real/Not Real,” catalogue essay, “Real: Six Black Figurative Painters,” Bass Museum of Art, Miami, 1996 “A Black Man Says ‘Sorbet,’” catalogue essay, Two Cents: The Art of Jean-Michel Basquiat and the Poetry of Kevin Young, Miami-Dade Community College Wolfson Galleries, 1995 “We Must Be About our Fathers ‘Business’: Anna Julia Cooper and the In-corporation of the Turn-of-the-Century Aframerican Intellectual,” Signs, (Winter 1994) “Memory, Community, Voice: African-American Poetry in the Age of AIDS,” Callaloo (Spring 1994) “‘Coming out Blackened and Whole’: Fragmentation and Reintegration in Audre Lorde’s Zami and The Cancer Journals,” American Literary History (Winter 1994) “‘We’re Gonna Deconstruct Your Life!’: The Making and Un-Making of the Black Bourgeois Patriarch in Ricochet,” in Representing Black Men, ed. Marcellus Blount and George P. Cunningham, Routledge, 1996 “‘Can you Be BLACK and Look at This?’: Reading the Rodney King Video(s),” in Public Culture (Fall 1994), and Whitney Museum, Black Male, 1994 “Walt Whitman and Gwendolyn Brooks,” Voice Literary Supplement, April 1994 “Living in the Jet Stream,” Voice Literary Supplement, February 1994 “The Anxiety of Authority,” The Women's Review of Books, February 1994
IV. Poetry and fiction in journals and anthologies	widely published; furnished upon request
AWARDS, GRANTS, AND FELLOWSHIPS 2011 2010 2009 2009 2009 2009 2007-2008 2007 2005 2002 1999-2000 1997 1993-1994 1994 1992 1990, 1991	Paterson Poetry Prize for Crave Radiance, sponsored by the Poetry Center at Passaic County Community College Anisfield-Wolf Award for Lifetime Achievement in Poetry Honorary Doctorate, Simmons College Honorary Doctorate, College of St. Benedict Alumni of the Year, Sidwell Friends School Inaugural Poet, President Barack Obama Mildred Londa Weisman Fellow (invited), Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University Jackson Poetry Prize (Inaugural recipient) Alphonse Fletcher, Sr., Fellowship, “for work which promotes the broad goals of the brwon v. Board of Education decision” (inaugural class) John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship Visiting Fellow, Whitney Humanities Center, Yale University Quantrell Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, University of Chicago Chicago Humanities Institute Fellowship, University of Chicago Fellow, Ragdale Foundation NEA Creative Writing Fellowship Fellow, Corporation of Yaddo
INVITED LECTURES (selected)	“Cemetery for the Illustrious Negro Dead,”DuBois Institute Fall Colloquium Series, Harvard University, September 2011 “Open the Unusual Door,” Keynote Address to the Freshman Class, Yale University, August 2011 “Ripping out the Seams: New Thoughts on Black Experimental Poetry,” Hopwood Lecture, University of Michigan, April 2011 “Cemetery for the Illustrious Negro Dead,” Keynote address, Columbia University Conference on Black Women’s Intellectual History, April 2011 “Hearing America Singing,” University of Washington Graduate School, April 2011 Commencement Address, College of St. Benedict, May 2010 Commencement Address, Simmons College, May 2010 “Venus Revisited,” Keynote address, Venus 2000 conference, NYU, March 2010 “Free Black Men,” Race in the Age of Obama Conference, Duke University Law School, March 2010 “In the Company of Scholars,” Yale Graduate Dean’s lecture, March 2010 Drue Heinz lecture, Pittsburgh, PA February 2010 Keynote Address, Zora Neale Hurston Festival, Eatonville, FL, January 2010 Martin Luther King Keynote address, Wittenberg University, January 2010 Martin Luther King Keynote address, University of Pennsylvania, January 2010 “Anna Julia Cooper in Washington,” Conference on Anna Julia Cooper, Penn State University, October 2008 James Baldwin Lecture, Hampshire College, March 2007 “The Ongoing Influence of Paul Laurence Dunbar on 20th Century African-American Poetry,” Dunbar Conference, Stanford University, March 2006 “Re-defining Experimental Black Poetry,” CUNY Graduate Center, March 2005 “Why Amistad, Why Now?: History Poems and the Contemporary Moment,” Yale University, “Why Literature Matters” Conference, April 2005 “The ‘kitchenette’, The World: On Gwendolyn Brooks,” Keynote Address, Medgar Evers College, Gwendolyn Brooks Symposium The Windfall Address, Nichols College, Dudley, MA, October 2004 Commencement Speaker, Yale University Black Graduation, May 2004 “Black Alive and Looking Back at You,” Keynote Address, June Jordan Memorial Conference, LaGuardia Community College, May 2003 Alice Moore Dunbar Nelson Scholar-in-Residence Address, Dillard University, New Orleans, February 2003 “Rethinking the Black Female Body,” Keynote Address, “Writing and the Difference ‘Race’ Makes” Conference, Southern Connecticut Community College, September 2002 “Langston Hughes and the Road to New Negro Poets USA,” Keynote Address, “Langston Hughes and His World” Conference, Yale University, February 2002 “Toward the Black Interior,” John Hope Franklin Center for Interdisciplinary Study, Duke University, February 2002 “On Black Masculinity,” Princeton Conference on Black Masculinity, November 1997 Keynote Address, “Affirmative Action Babies, Bourgeois Blues,” Unnatural Acts Conference, UC Riverside, Riverside, CA, April 1997 “‘The Block’ and Beyond: Bearden, DuBois, and Collage,” Symposium on Romare Bearden, University of Pennsylvania, September 1996 “Writing the Venus Hottentot,” Riverfront Forum, University of Chicago, November 1994 “Memory, Community, Voice: African-American Poetry in the Age of AIDS,” Conference in Honor of Melvin Dixon, CUNY Graduate Center, March 1994; Black Women in the Academy Conference, M.I.T., Jan. 1994 “‘Can you be BLACK and Look at This?’: Reading the Rodney King Video(s),” Midwest Faculty Seminar, University of Chicago, April 1993; Contested Boundaries Conference, University of California-Irvine, May 1993; Society for Cinema Studies Conference, February 1993 “Re-Visions of ‘Two-Ness’: Du Bois and Beyond,” Midwest Faculty Seminar, University of Chicago, January 1993 “Issues in Black Women’s Literature,” Mellon Literacy Program, University of Chicago, October 1992 “On Romare Bearden,” UCLA, Wight Art Gallery, Jan. 1992 “New Approaches for Teaching Afro-American Poetry,” PATHS/PRISM workshop, Philadelphia, PA, 1989
PERFORMANCE 2010 2009 1997 1996	Premiere, “City Song,” with Lewis Spratlan (Composer), Woolsey Hall, Yale University, Yale Glee Club Premiere, “Five Men,” with Elena Ruehr (Composer), Kennedy Center Terrace Theater, Washington Vocal Arts Society Collaborator, “Doppler Incident, ” conceived and directed by Kerry James Marshall, BAM/New Wave Festival, New York City “Diva Studies, ” full-length verse drama (directing thesis commissioned by Yale School of Drama) University Theater, Yale University
POETRY READINGS	extensive national and international readings since 1986; furnished upon request
PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES AND AFFILIATIONS 2010 2010 2010 2010- 2009 2009 2008 2006 2005- 2005 2005 2005 2003-2006 2003-2006 2002-2004 2002 2002- 2002 2002 2002-2007 2000-2004 2000- 1997- 1995- 1994 1993 1993 1993-1994 1992-1996	Judge, United States of Artists fellowship competition Panel Chair, National Book Award for Poetry Judge, Naomi Long Madgett Book Prize, Lotus Press External Advisory Committee, Black Metropolis Research Consortium Judge, Cave Canem Book Prize Judge, Rona Jaffe Foundation Advisor, Poetry Foundation Website Phi Beta Kappa Poet, Harvard University Nominator and nominee evaluator, U.S. Artists, Whiting, Rona Jaffe, and MacArthur Foundations Judge, Bollingen Prize for Poetry, Yale University Libraries Phi Beta Kappa Poet, Yale University American poetry representative, Pablo Neruda Centennial Celebration, Santiago, Chile, sponsored by Fundacion Neruda and Universidad Diego Portales Judge, Whiting Foundation Judge, James Laughlin Award, Academy of American Poets Judge, O.B. Hardison Award, Folger Shakespeare Library New Haven Arts Awards Selection Committee Program consultant, International Festival of Arts and Ideas, New Haven, CT Poetry Judge, National Book Award Interdisciplinary Panel Juror, Pew Charitable Trusts Arts Grants Board, Poetry Society of America Board, Gwendolyn Brooks Center, Chicago State University Advisory Board, Furious Flower Foundation for African American Poetry Founding and Honorary Board Member, Cave Canem Foundation Visiting writer abroad, Berlin and Hamburg, Germany; Rio de Janeiro, Minas Gerais, and Salvador, Brazil; Santiago, Chile; Treasure Beach, Jamaica. Sponsored by Calabash; U.S. State Department; Goethe-Institut; Callaloo magazine Guest Editor, Missouri Arts Council Biennial Dramaturge, “Twilight” by Anna Deavere Smith, Mark Taper Forum, Los Angeles Poetry Panelist, National Endowment for the Arts Consultant, Poetry Center of Chicago Board, Tia Chucha Press
UNIVERSITY SERVICE (selected) I. Yale University 2000 to date	Faculty consultant to Yale Art Gallery for exhibition and programming, “Embodied: African American Art in the Yale collection,” 2010-2011 Search committee member and/or chair for African American Studies Department senior and junior ladder faculty searches joint with Departments of Anthropology, English, American Studies, Theater Studies, Political Science, Art History, resulting in 6 hires, 2 pending, 2009- Honorary Degrees Committee, 2009- Poynter Journalism Fellowship Committee, 2009- President’s Committee on gender and admissions, 2009- University Budget Committee, 2009-2010 Lecturer, Association of Yale Alumni (San Francisco, New York, Washington DC, New Haven), 2008- Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Collection Advisory Committee, 2007- Ribicoff Teaching Prize Committee, 2007 Founder and director, “New Ideas in African-American Studies” lecture series, 2007- Nakanishi Prize selection committee, 2006, 2007 Director of Undergraduate Studies, African American Studies, 2006-2007 Affiliate faculty and Executive Committee member, Women’s Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program, 2005- Affiliate faculty and Executive Committee member, Theater Studies Program, 2005- Board, African-American Cultural Center, 2003- Graduate Admissions Committee, African American Studies, 2002- Readings Committee, English Department, 2001- Minority Graduate Affairs Advisory Committee, 2002- Prize Committee, African-American Cultural Center, 2002- Langston Hughes and His World Centennial Conference, Literary Director, 2002 Graduate Program Committee, African American Studies, 2002-
II. SMITH COLLEGE 1997-1999	Director, Poetry Center at Smith College Founding Collective and editorial board, Meridians: race, feminism, transnationalism
III. UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO 1991-1997	Co-convener, “Race and the Reproduction of Racial Ideologies” workshop Co-convener, American Culture workshop Founding Committee, Gender Studies Program Co-founder, Committee on Racial Justice Graduate Admissions and Aid Committee University Policy Committee Departmental Hiring Committee Moody Lectures Series Committee (chair) Morton Dauwen Zabel Committee (poetry readings) Instructor, Mellon program for public high school teachers Advisor, Women's Guide to the U. of C. Board member, Community Service Center Member, Committee on Critical Practice Galler Prize Committee for Distinguished dissertations Selection Committee, Mellon Minority Scholars
OTHER TEACHING 2007, 2009 2006 2004 2002 2001, 2003 1996- 1996 1995 1993 1992 1991 1988, 1989 1987-1988 1985-1986	Napa Valley Writers Workshop Visiting Associate Professor, English Department, University of Pennsylvania (Spring) Arvon Foundation Workshop, Yorkshire, England Yale University Summer School New York University, Graduate Creative Writing Program Cave Canem Poetry Workshop (founding faculty) Visiting Assistant Professor, English Department, Yale University (Spring) Visiting Assistant Professor, English Department, Northwestern University (Fall) Dunbar Vocational High School, N.E.H.-funded project on Gwendolyn Brooks Guild Complex, Chicago, Illinois Wesleyan University Summer Writer's Conference Germantown Friends School (Spring) University of Pennsylvania (freshman English seminars) Boston University (undergraduate creative writing seminar)
OTHER PRIZES 2001, 2000, 1998 1997 1997 1994 1993 1992 1986	Pushcart Prizes for Poetry Honorable Mention, “Diva Studies,” Jane Chambers Playwriting Award, Women and Theatre Program of ATHE George Kent Prize for Poetry, Chicago State Black Writers Conference Kenyon Review Prize for Literary Excellence Illinois Arts Council Literary Award George Kent Prize, Poetry magazine (awarded by Gwendolyn Brooks) Larry Neal Writer’s Award for Fiction, D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities
	Additional references available upon request

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