Benjamin Slote


IMG_0025Title : Professor of English
Department: English & Journalism
Research Fields of Interest : American Literature and Culture.
Degrees: B.A., Northwestern University; M.A., Yale University; Ph.D., Yale University.

Contact Info:
Email: bslote@allegheny.edu
Phone: (814) 332-4322

Office Location: Odd Fellows 235
Office Hours (Fall ’22): Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays 11:00am-12:00pm; Tuesdays 2:00-4:30pm
Other times by appointment

Courses (Fall ’22)
ENGL 231 – American Literatures

Publications
Essays

  • Slote, Ben. “`Packed to Its Rafters with Grief’: America’s Kentucky Romance and the Rememorializing of Beloved.” Journal of American Culture. 41:1 (March 2018), 45-55
  • Slote, Ben. “Jewett at the Fair: Seeing Citizens in ‘The Flight of Betsey Lane.'” Studies in American Fiction, 36, 1 (Spring 2008).*
  • Slote, Ben. “Review, Henry Wonham, Charles W. Chesnutt: A Study of the Short Fiction” (NY:Twayne, 1998) in African American Review, 36, 1 (Spring 2008).*
  • Slote, Ben. “Wilbur’s ‘Mayflies’ and the Call of Artifice,” with “Commentary,” Allegheny College Writing Center website 1999*
  • Slote, Ben. “Listening to ‘The Goophered Grapevine’ and Hearing Raisins Sing,” in Henry Wonham, Charles W. Chesnutt: A Study of the Short Fiction, (NY: Twayne, 1998) *
  • Slote, Ben. “Revising Freely: Frederick Douglass and the Politics of Disembodiment,” a/b: Auto/Biography Studies, 11, 1 (Spring, 1996) *
  • Slote, Ben. “Narrative Jujitsu: Twain’s ‘Studied Fictions’ and Their Plot Against Audience,” Prospects, Vol. 20 (1995) *

Selected Conference Papers and Readings

  • “The Hospitalities of Fiction: Reader Affiliation in U.S. Literary Culture,” Allegheny Faculty Lecture Series, April 2022
  • “What Comping Means,” keynote address, the Cook-Lahti Symposium, May 2022
  • (invited)  “Beloved’s Aggression, Beloved’s Acclaim.”  Imagining Slavery, Envisioning Freedoms, a symposium at the University at Albany, State University of New York, April, 2018
  • “Habitat”–one-act play, performed October 2020, Allegheny College
  • “The Messiness of Civil Rights: What Justice Looks Like in the Land of Employment Discrimination,” Allegheny Faculty Lecture Series, March 2014
  • Calling Ida—one-act play, performed April 2014, Allegheny College
  • “Passing for Authentic: the Midwesternizing of Laura Bush in An American Wife.” Midwestern Modern Language Association Conference. St. Louis. (November 2009)
  • “Our Old Kentucky Home: Chensutt, Morrison, and the Passing of Plantation Romance.” Midwestern Modern Language Association Conference. Cleveland. (November 2007)
  • “Floating in the Backwater: American Academic Novels and the Problem of the Local,” Narrative: An International Conference, Louisville. (April 2005)
  • “Matriotic Vision and the Anti-Imperial in Jewett’s ‘The Flight of Betsey Lane,'” Narrative: An International Conference, East Lansing. (April 2002)
  • “Upgrading the Server: Reanimating the Liberal Arts through Computer-Mediated Pedagogy,” poster co-presentation, A.A.C&U conference, New Orleans. (2000)
  • “Dickinson and Doctors,” Humanities Lecture Series, Allegheny College. (Spring 1998)
  • “Race as Hypochondria: Howells’s An Imperative Duty and the Cure of Realism,” Narrative: An International Conference, Gainsville, FL. (April 1997)
  • “The Road to Wellville through Emily Dickinson,” American Studies Association Conference, Pittsburgh. (November 1995)
  • “Narrative Freedom as Biographical Bondage? The Conditions of Douglass’ Authority,” Narrative: An International Conference, Vancouver, B.C. (April 1994)
  • “Listening to ‘The Goophered Grapevine’ and Hearing Raisins Sing,” Narrative: An International Conference, Albany. (April 1993) “Capitalism, Consumerism and the Novel” (moderator) Narrative Conference, Nashville. (April 1992)
  • “Audiences in Mark Twain,” Humanities Lecture Series, Allegheny College. (November 1991)