S2E02 Literary Journalism with Dr. Rob Alexander

What is literary journalism and why is it important? How does literary journalism engage with social justice issues? How do we navigate the rise of "fake news" and the decline of local journalism? How does a professor teach immersive journalism during a pandemic lockdown? 

To answer these questions, our guest this episode is Rob Alexander, an Associate Professor with the Department of English Language and Literature. He specializes in the areas of rhetoric and composition and journalism studies. His research looks at how journalistic subjectivity expresses itself in literary journalism.  

Rob’s scholarly work has appeared in various journals and edited books. He has written about literary journalism and ecocriticism for The Routledge Companion to American Journalism (2019) and most recently published Fear and Loathing Worldwide: Gonzo Journalism Beyond Hunter S. Thompson, edited with Christine Isager of the University of Copenhagen. His fiction work has appeared in Wild Rose Country and Prairie Fire. 

Transcript available online at brocku.ca/humanities. 

 

Links

Dr. Robert Alexander, faculty bio

Department of English Language and Literature, Brock University

Writing, Rhetoric, and Discourse Studies program, Department of English, Brock University

International Association for Literary Journalism Studies

International Association for Literary Journalism Studies Journal

Robert Alexander and Willa McDonald "Social Justice and Literary Journalism" (forthcoming)

John Richardson "Ballad of the Sad Climatologists" (Esquire, August 2015)

Maggie Berg and Barbara Seeber "The Slow Professor" (University of Toronto Press, 2016)

Rob Nixon "Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor" (Harvard University Press, 2013)

 

Credits

Thank you to listening to Foreword. 

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Foreword is hosted and produced by Alison Innes for the Faculty of Humanities at Brock University. 

Our sound design and editing is by Nicole Arnt. Theme music is by Khalid Imam. 

Special thanks to Brock University’s MakerSpace and Brock University Marketing and Communications for studio and web support. 

This podcast is financially supported by the Faculty of Humanities at Brock University.