Elizabeth Alexander

Elizabeth Alexander is the author of a collection of essays on African American literature, painting, and popular culture, The Black Interior (2004) and four books of poems, The Venus Hottentot (1990), Body of Life (1996), Antebellum Dream Book (2001), and American Sublime (2005), one of the American Library Association’s 25 Notable Books of the Year and finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

Her verse play, “Diva Studies,” was produced at the Yale School of Drama in May 1996. Alexander has taught at the University of Chicago, New York University’s Graduate Creative Writing Program, and Smith College, where she was Grace Hazard Conkling Poet-in-Residence and first director of the Poetry Center at Smith College.

Professor Alexander is an inaugural 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 teaches courses on African American poetry, drama, and 20th century literature, as well as the survey introduction to African American Studies.

Elizabeth Alexander received her BA from Yale University and PhD from the University of Pennsylvania.