Degrees:
Ph.D., Yale Univ.
B.A., Univ. of Chicago
Ben Pokross’s research focuses on early and nineteenth-century American literature, Native American and Indigenous Studies, and print and media histories. His current book project, Writing History in the Nineteenth Century Great Lakes, examines the entwined development of Indigenous textual practices and settler historical writing. An article drawn from this project is forthcoming in J19: The Journal of Nineteenth-Century Americanists.
In his teaching, he tries to expand the canon of American literature not only by including underread authors but by challenging his students to think more broadly about what constitutes literature itself. He has taught at Yale University and the University of Tulsa. He maintains an interest in public humanities and community collaboration, having held positions at the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and the Longfellow House-Washington’s Headquarters National Historic Site in Cambridge, MA. |
-
Early American Literature
-
19th Century American Literature
-
Native American Literature
-
History of the Book
-
Media Studies
-
Literature and Place
|
-
Early American Literature
-
19th Century American Literature
-
Native American and Indigenous Studies
-
Historiography
-
Historical Writing
-
Print Culture Studies
-
Media Studies
|
Publications:
- “Memorial Forms: Copway’s American Indian and History in an Age of Information,” J19: The Journal of Nineteenth-Century Americanists (forthcoming).
Presentations:
- “Washington in the Native Northeast,” Longfellow House-Washington’s Headquarters National Historic Site, July 5, 2025.
- “Becoming an “Indian Book”: Translating Anishinabe Masinaigas,”
Society of Early Americanists Biennial Conference, South Bend, IN, June
6, 2025.
- “Settling England in Frances Brooks’ The History of
Emily Montague” American Literature Association Annual Conference,
Boston, MA, May 22, 2025.
- “Performing Hiawatha: Black and
Indigenous Adaptations of Longfellow’s Poem” as part of Edmonia Lewis
and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: New Insights at the Bowdoin College
Museum of Art, April 14, 2025.
- “Searching the Past, Finding the Present: Identifying Contemporary Tribal Communities in Gilcrease Museum’s Rare Books Collection,” (with Jana Gowan and Dr. Billy Smith), Metadata Justice in Oklahoma Libraries & Archives Symposium, June 13, 2024.
- “Reprinting Native America: Historical Reprints and Indigenous Print Culture,” Society for Textual Scholarship Conference, Tulsa, OK, June 6-8, 2024.
- “Reading Linguistic Diversity in Simon Pokagon’s Ogimawkwe Mitigwaki (Queen of the Woods)” C19: The Society of Nineteenth Century Americanists, Pasadena, CA, March 14, 2024.
- “Peter Jones’ Record-Keeping and Methodist Historical Consciousness,” Society of Early Americanists Biennial Conference, College Park, MD, June 11, 2023.
- “‘I am now about to publish’: Printing William Whipple Warren’s History of the Ojibway People,” New Directions in Indigenous Book History, online, March 24, 2023.
- “Materializing the Vanished: Simon Pokagon’s Birch Bark Rebuke”, C19:
The Society of Nineteenth Century Americanists, Online, Oct 23, 2020.
|
- Dorothy and Herman Miller Fellowship in Great Lakes History, Clements Library, University of Michigan, 2024-2025
- Advisory Council Dissertation Fellowship, McNeil Center for Early American Studies, University of Pennsylvania, 2022-2023
- Mellon Foundation Short-Term Resident Research Fellowship, American Philosophical Society, 2022-2023
- Newberry Consortium in American Indian Studies (NCAIS) Graduate Student Fellowship, Newberry Library, 2022-2023
- Alfred Cave Short Term Fellowship, Clements Library, University of Michigan, 2022-2023
- Rising Scholar Prize, C19: The Society of Nineteenth Century Americanists, 2020
- Teaching Innovation Grant, Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning, Yale University (with Maria del Mar Galindo), 2020
|
|