Jonathan Alexander

In an interview with Alexander, Bre Garrett summarizes his contributions to the field of composition studies: "Across almost two decades of work in the profession, Jonathan Alexander has contributed to vast conversations in the field of composition, and he has paved deliberate routes for cross-disciplinary studies that intersect sexuality, literacy, and technologies. Across a sea of publications directed toward diverse audiences, Jonathan has remained attentive to the relationship among bodies, poetic rhetorics, and platforms of public communication. In this interview, Jonathan provides readers with a forward-looking perspective about the possibilities and openness of composition as a complex research field, yet he also reflects on the challenges and constraints, some self-imposed, that composition now faces as an established discipline. Jonathan accounts for his inaugural moment as a researcher in composition, recalling how he discovered a methodological space where he could remain committed to his ongoing interest in sexuality studies, and integrate, what was at the time, his emerging interest in computerized pedagogies. Jonathan’s entrance in the profession coincided with critical cultural moments that adhered to his scholastic goals: Harriet Malinowitz’s 1995 publication of Textual Orientations, the visibility of computers and composition as a recognized research field, and a pedagogical orientation toward the “social turn.” As a teacher and administrator, Jonathan frequently questions and assesses—and must account for—composition's objects of study. He asks that as a field we continue asking the very question of what constitutes writing, and he calls for researchers to re-examine histories of actual composing practices. In his published work, both print texts and conference presentations, he experiments with form and poetic style, and he designs, often collaboratively, textual spaces that make explicit the place and performance of bodies in literate acts, bodies in rhetorical motion."

He was editor of College Composition and Communication from 2015-2020. He is also a frequent contributor to the Los Angeles Review of Books.

His books have been nominated for various awards, including the Lambda Literary Award and the Computers and Composition Distinguished Book Award. His book, On Multimodality: New Media in Composition Studies won both the Conference on College Composition and Communication Outstanding Book Award and the Computers and Composition Distinguished Book Award. Techne: Queer Meditations on Writing the Subject won the 2015 Lavender Rhetorics Award for Excellence in Queer Scholarship. Alexander is a three-time recipient of the Ellen Nold Award for Best Article in the field of Computers and Composition Studies. In 2011, he was given the Charles Moran Award for Distinguished Contributions to the Field of Computers and Writing. In 2018, his memoir Creep: A Life, a Theory, an Apology, was a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award.

Alexander received his BA in English and an MA and PhD in Comparative Literature (1993) from Louisiana State University. He studied with James Olney, who was the Voorhies Professor of English and an editor of The Southern Review.

Jonathan Alexander (born October 2, 1967) is an American rhetorician and memoirist. He is Chancellor's Professor of English, Informatics, Education, and Gender & Sexuality Studies at the University of California, Irvine. His scholarly and creative work is situated at the intersections of digital culture, sexuality, and composition studies.