Alison Fraser
Associate Curator, Poetry Collection and Curator, Rare & Special Books
Pronouns: she/hers
420 Capen Hall, North Campus
Buffalo, NY 14260
- Ph: 716-645-1374
Office Hours
Office hours by appointment.
Education and Training
- PhD, English, University at Buffalo, 2017
- MA, English, University of Maine, 2010
- BA, English, Hollins University (Roanoke, VA), 2008. Phi Beta Kappa
Awards and Honors
- Senior Fellow, Andrew W. Mellon Society of Fellows in Critical Bibliography at Rare Book School
- Malkin New Scholar, Bibliographical Society of America, 2020
- Dissertation Fellowship in Women's Studies, Woodrow Wilson Foundation, 2016-2017
Publications
Books
- Nice: Collected Poems by David Melnick. Co-edited with Benjamin Friedlander, Jeffrey Jullich, and Ron Silliman. Brooklyn, NY: Nightboat Books, 2023.
- The Collages of Helen Adam. Ed. Fort Collins, CO and Victoria, TX: Further Other Book Works/Cuneiform Press, 2017.
Articles
- "Creating the Twentieth-Century Literary Archives: A Short History of the Poetry Collection at the University at Buffalo." Information & Culture 55.3 (Fall 2020): 252-270.
- "Mass Print, Clipping Bureaus, and the Pre-Digital Database: Reexamining Marianne Moore's Collage Poetics through the Archives." Journal of Modern Literature 43.1 (Fall 2019): 19-33.
- "Teaching Creative Writing in Special Collections." RBM: A Journal of Rare Books, Manuscripts, and Cultural Heritage 20.2 (Fall 2019): 70-82.
- "Diasporic Object Lessons: Material Identity and the Korean Diaspora in the Work of Theresa Hak Kyung Cha." Asian Diasporas. Spec. issue of WSQ: Women's Studies Quarterly 47.1-2 (Spring/Summer 2019): 31-47.
Research
My research interests include twentieth-century Anglophone poetics, historical bibliography, material culture, print ephemera, feminist theory, critical archival studies, and special collections pedagogy.
Professional Memberships
- Rare Books & Manuscripts Section (RBMS) of ACRL
- Co-chair, RBMS 2024
- Editorial Board Member, RBM: A Journal of Rare Books, Manuscripts, and Cultural Heritage, 2024-present
- Libraries and Research Forum Executive Committee, Modern Language Association
- Secretary, 2024-2025
Presentations
Selected presentations from 2018 to present:
- “Beyond Manuscripts: Teaching with Special Formats in Special Collections,” lightning talk panel, Rare Books and Manuscripts Section Annual Conference, June 2021.
- "Public Readership and the Private Press: An Archival Recovery of Erica Marx’s The Hand & Flower Press," 20th- and 21st-Century British and Anglophone Forum roundtable, Annual Convention of the Modern Language Assocation, Jan. 2021
- “Homemade Books in Twentieth-Century Poetics: A Feminist Bibliography,” Annual Meeting of the Bibliographical Society of America, Jan. 2020. Invited as a BSA New Scholar
- “Poetic Manifestations: Witchcraft and Magic in the Work of Helen Adam,” Occult Humanities Conference, New York University, Oct. 2019. Invited
- “Women Who Live to Destroy: Helen Adam’s Witchy Poetics,” Rochester Institute of Technology, Sept. 2019. Invited
- “Ephemeral Materials and Invisible Women: Labor and Language in the Helen Adam Collection,” Society for the History of Authorship, Reading, and Publishing Annual Conference, July 2019
- “Homemade Books: Ephemeral Book Objects in Twentieth-Century Book History,” Annual Convention of the Modern Language Association, Jan. 2019
- “From Wastebasket to Library: Creating the Twentieth-Century Literary Archive,” The Past, Present, and Future of Libraries Conference, American Philosophical Society, Sept. 2018