New faculty: Alex Moskowitz
Alex Moskowitz, new faculty member at Mount Holyoke College, teaches early and nineteenth-century American and African American literature.
Although reading American and African American literature from the nineteenth century is a crucial element to understanding the past, Alex Moskowitz feels it’s equally important to make connections in the literature that can inform our understanding of the present.
This fall semester, Moskowitz will take this approach to Mount Holyoke College students as an assistant professor of English. Prior to his current role, he served as a visiting lecturer in the Department of English.
“I emphasize to all my classes that I want students to understand these texts on their own terms. I want them to relate them to contemporary issues,” he said. “I want them to make sense of the text … what can the past tell us about today? I ask students to make that connection because when students have personal investments, they care more. They do better. They want to do the reading. They want to show up.”
His approach to teaching highlights the continued political, economic and social relevance of American and African American literature. Among the writers that he’s exploring — both in his research and with students at Mount Holyoke — are Martin Delany, an early African American novelist and abolitionist; leading Transcendentalist, naturalist and essayist Henry David Thoreau; Samson Occom, missionary and Indigenous writer; and Harriet Jacobs, an African American writer and abolitionist.
Moskowitz, originally from Long Island, previously taught at Emerson College. He holds a bachelor’s degree from the State University of New York at Purchase College in Westchester, New York, and a master’s degree and doctorate from Boston College.
Since he began teaching at Mount Holyoke, Moskowitz has been continuously impressed by his students and how invested they are in their own education. During classes, he enjoys the opportunity to talk about what he finds most compelling about the texts, and he strives to foster an environment where his students can openly disagree and discuss literature as an intellectual community.
“They do the work. They’re really good students. They’re really interesting and creative thinkers. Not everyone has to have the same point of view,” he said. “Just after the first few weeks, I said to myself: ‘These students are amazing’. It’s only been confirmed and reconfirmed each semester.”
Beyond his dedication to literature, Moskowitz spends quite a bit of time in his home kitchen baking sourdough bread and making pizza. He also enjoys running in Boston, where he lives, and taking trips to the park and local coffee shops with his son Ishmael.
