Alex Valin
Adjunct Volunteer Thompson Learning Community University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Contact
- Address
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ANDR 306
Lincoln, NE 68588-0333 - Phone
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402-472-3191 On-campus 2-3191
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avalin2@unl.edu
Alex C. Valin is a Lecturer in English and Affiliated Faculty in the Institute of Ethnic Studies and African and African American Studies program. He is currently working on a book project titled Low Fidelity: Tape Recording and Black Experimental Literature that examines the presence and influence of tape recording technology in late 20th century African American and Afro-Caribbean fiction and poetry. He is also currently co-editing a special issue of ariel: A Review of International English Literature titled “Ambivalent Realism in African and Afro-Diasporic Literature” and serves on the executive committee of the MS Sound Forum in the Modern Language Association.
Education
PhD (2024) Columbia University
MA (2017) University of Chicago
BA (2016) Oglethorpe University
Selected Publications:
“The Haunting of Julius Dunbar Eastman.” ASAP/Journal, Vol. 8, No. 3, September 2023.
“The Race of Sound: Listening, Timbre & Vocality in African American Music by Nina Sun Eidsheim (review)” Women and Music: A Journal of Gender and Culture, Vol. 24, 2020.
Selected Conference Presentations:
“The Foundations of Decay: My Chemical Romance, 9/11, and Screaming on the Radio.” EmoCon, Washington University, St. Louis, April 2026.
“Mishearing the Familiar.” MS Sound Forum: Clapping Back: Responses from Sound Studies to Censorship & Silencing, MLA Annual Meeting, Toronto, January 2026
“Matzoh Ball Soup for the (Post-)Soul: Fran Ross’s Black Yinglish Humor.” Seminar Co-Organizer and Presenter: The End of the Beginning: Post-Soul Humor, ACLA Annual Conference, virtual, May 2025
“Literature and the Soundscape.” MS Sound Forum Roundtable, MLA Annual Meeting, New Orleans, January 2025
“Lossy Cassettes and Silent Archives in Nathaniel Mackey’s Bedouin Hornbook.” Assembling Sound Seminar, ACLA Annual Conference, Montreal, March 2024
“Just as Technomantic and Necromantic: The Tape Recorder Body in Erna Brodber’s Louisiana.” Presenter and co-organizer: Indifferent Realisms of 20th-Century Black Diasporic Writing, NeMLA Annual Meeting, Boston, March 2024
Areas of Interest:
20th and 21st Century African American Literature
20th and 21st Century Afro-Caribbean Literature
Sound Studies
Black Studies
Jewish American Literature
Experimentalism
Science Fiction and Horror
Courses Recently Taught:
ENGL 151 Writing for Change
189H From the Soul: African American Music in Novels (Fall 2026)
ENGL 200 Introduction to English Studies (Fall 2026)
ENGL 206 Science Fiction
ENGL 207 Reading Popular Literature
ENGL 254 Writing and Communities