Associate Professor Alex Joseph Calder
MA , PhD
Biography
- Associate Professor
- Head of English, Drama and Writing Studies
Research interests
New Zealand literature, American literature, literary theory and criticism, Herman Melville, Literature and Settlement.
Research | Current
- Literary studies, especially New Zealand and American Literature
Alex's research, for which he has received a Marsden award, focuses on processes of cultural contact and settlement, particularly with regard to writings from New Zealand, the Pacific, and the United States. Book length publications include: The Writing of New Zealand, a non-fiction anthology; Voyages and Beaches, an interdisciplinary collection of essays on early European encounters with the Pacific; and Old New Zealand and other Writings, the first scholarly edition of the writings of the 19th century ‘Pakeha-Maori’ author, F. E. Maning. His most recent book is The Settler’s Plot: How Stories Take Place in New Zealand (Auckland University Press, 2011).
Teaching | Current
ENGLISH 102 Great Books: Seduction and Betrayal
ENGLISH 221 New Zealand Literature
Postgraduate supervision
Current PhD
Elizabeth Wilson, Marianne Moore
Tracy Miao, Katherine Mansfield and Impressionism
Andrew Clark, Space and Genre in Science Fiction
Sasha Mathewman, Ecocriticism and Education for Sustainability
Current MA
Joe Barnes, Herman Melville and Slavery
Responsibilities
Head of English, Drama and Writing Studies.
Areas of expertise
Literary Studies, especially New Zealand and American Literature
Selected publications and creative works (Research Outputs)
- Calder, A. J. (2011). Blubber: Melville's Bad Writing. In S. Otter, G. Sanborn (Eds.) Melville and Aesthetics (pp. 11-31). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
URL: http://hdl.handle.net/2292/13015 - Calder, A. J. (2011). Herman Melville. In P. Rawlings (Ed.) Emerson, Melville, James, Berryman: Great Shakespeareans Volume VIII (pp. 51-94). London and New York: Continuum.
URL: http://hdl.handle.net/2292/11783 - Calder, A. J. (2011). The Settler's Plot: How Stories Take Place in New Zealand. Auckland, New Zealand: Auckland University Press. Pages: 310.
URL: http://hdl.handle.net/2292/10492 - Calder, A. J. (2011). Wreckage and Writing: Problems of Pseudo-Autobiography in Melville's Omoo and Conrad's Mirror of the Sea. In P. Jedrzejko, M. M. Reigelman, Z. Szatanik (Eds.) Secret Sharers: Melville, Conrad and Narratives of the Real (pp. 143-156). Zabrze: M-Studio.
- Calder, A. J. (2006). Pacific Paradises. In Wyn Kelley (Ed.) A Companion to Herman Melville (pp. 98-112). Oxford: Blackwell Science Ltd. 10.1111/b.9781405122313.2006.00011.x
URL: http://hdl.handle.net/2292/13014
Contact details
- +64 9 923 7340
- +64.9.923.7340
- a.calder@auckland.ac.nz
- Media Contact
Primary office location
ARTS 1 - Bldg 206
Level 6, Room 633
14A SYMONDS ST
AUCKLAND 1010
New Zealand