Jeff Allred

Professor Allred has been at Hunter since 2005. He teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in nineteenth- and twentieth-century American literature, modernism, and literary theory, in addition to more specialized topics, such as “Documentary in Literature and Film,” “ABCs of Modernism,” and “Art/Work: Labor and Culture in the 20th Century US.” His proudest achievement in the classroom came recently in the form of an anonymous student comment (you know who you are): “Prof. Allred makes bad books seem good.” Professor Allred has published a book, American Modernism and Depression Documentary (Oxford University Press, 2010; paperback 2012), which surveys the uneven terrain of American modernity through the lens of photo-documentary books, including work by James Agee/Walker Evans, Richard Wright, and Erskine Caldwell/Margaret Bourke-White. He has also recently published a review-essay in American Literary History on the concept of normality in midcentury American culture. His next book project, ABCs of Modernism, will examine relationships between pedagogy and literary modernism. He is also working on a project on new media and the novel genre, "Novel Hacks."