Jonathan Alexander

Chancellor's Professor of English and Informatics
School of Humanities

Faculty, UCI Connected Learning Lab

Researcher, The Wayfinding Project https://thewayfindingproject.com/

Core Faculty, Program in Culture & Theory

Chair, Department of English

writing studies & rhetoric, lifespan writing studies, life writing, rhetorics of popular culture

Jonathan Alexander is a three-time recipient of the Ellen Nold Award for Best Articles in the field of Computers and Composition Studies. In 2011, he was awarded the Charles Moran Award for Distinguished Contributions to the Field of Computers and Writing Studies. From 2010-2013, Jonathan was named a UCI Chancellor's Fellow in recognition of his scholarly achievements. In 2016, he was named a Chancellor's Professor. In 2023, he received the Conference on College Composition and Communication Exemplar Award in recognition of career achievements.

My subject is writing — what it is, what it does, how it moves in the world. My interest in writing as an object of inquiry manifests in three interrelated ways. First, I study life writing, or the ways in which many different people render accounts of their lives, of the mystery of existence, into words, narratives, and stories. This inquiry takes into account multimodal and multi-mediated forms of life writing and personal and collective storytelling. I also practice the art of life writing through autofiction, autotheory and memoir. Second, I study life-span writing, or the ongoing development of writing abilities, skills, and knowledge about writing throughout the course of a life. Our research group, the Wayfinding Project, surveys and interviews college alumni as they develop careers and post-collegiate lives to understand the continuing role of writing in their lives. Our research participants amaze us with the critical and creative ways that they find to use writing to further their interests, explore their desires, and discover the worlds around them. Finally, I study the rhetorics of popular culture, particularly how fans and others use writing and multimedia storytelling to engage many kinds of pop cultural products, from science fiction to young adult fiction. Pop culture remains a powerful way through which different people develop narratives to understand the world around them and to imagine possible alternative worlds. Indeed, it is through a study of fans’ and others’ interactions with popular culture in the creation of fan texts and fan media that we see powerfully the potentiality of writing as a form of imaginative worldbuilding.

Methodologically, my work in these three areas approaches the study of writing through a variety of methods, from close reading to autoethnography to qualitative analysis anchored in grounded theory. I remain committed to what I call interdisciplinary troublemaking as the richest methodological approach to study something as complex and multifaceted as writing.

Modern Language Association

National Council of Teachers of English

Rhetoric Society of America

Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts

Link to this profile
https://faculty.uci.edu/profile/?facultyId=5456

Last updated
09/14/2026