Department of English

Academic Specialty:

• Colonial American Literature
• History of the Book
• Nineteenth-Century American Literature
• Authorship and Intellectual Property

Office Hours:

TR 2:00-3:30, and by appt.
Virtual hours MW in the morning

Education:

• Ph.D. in American Literature, University of Missouri
• MA in Rhetoric and Compostion, University of Arkansas, Little Rock
• BA English and American Studies, University of Iowa

Selected Publications:

• Ramsey, Colin. “An Introduction; Manuscript and Print Circulation for Instruction and Pleasure: the Case of Benjamin Franklin’s Poetic Epitaph.” Forthcoming in Studies in Eighteenth-Century  Culture, vol. 48 (spring 2019).
• Ramsey, Colin. “Fireplaces and Electric Letters: Benjamin Franklin’s Science, Manuscript Circulation, and ‘Anti-Authorship’ in Print.” After Print: Manuscript Studies and Eighteenth-Century  Literature, Ed. Rachel Scarborough King, University of Virginia Press (under contract). 
• Ramsey, Colin. “From The Boston News-Letter to the ‘Couranteers’: Epistolarity, Reportage, and Entertaining Literature in Colonial American Newspapers.” The Routledge Companion to  American Literary Journalism, Eds. William Dow and Roberta McGuire, Routledge Press (under contract: forthcoming in summer of 2018).
• Ramsey, Colin. “Disney’s National Treasure, the Declaration of Independence, and the Erasure of Print from the American Revolution.” The Cinematic Eighteenth Century: History, Culture, and  Adaptation, Eds. Sividhya Swaminathan and Steven Thomas, New York: Routledge Press, 2017. 87-102. Print.
• Ramsey, Colin, et. al. “Teaching St Herbert—a Tale in a Master’s Level Course in American Literature.” Common-Place: A Digital Journal of Early American Studies. 16 Mar. 2015. Web. 22 Sept. 2015. (invited)
• Ramsey, Colin and Martha McCaughey. “Copyright for Academics in the Digital Age.” Academe 98.5 (2012): 10-17. Print. (Rpt. in Society for Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology News, Forthcoming)
• Ramsey, Colin. “Stealing Benjamin Franklin’s Stove: a New Identification for ‘The Ironmonger in London.’” ANQ 20.2 (2007): 25-30. Print.
• Ramsey, Colin. “Ann Stephens’s Malaeska: an Unknown Early Version and Some Thoughts on Dime Novels and the Gender of Readers.” Dime Novel Round-Up 75.3 (2006): 67-76. Print. (Rpt. in Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism. Ed. Lawrence Trudeau. Vol. 303. New York: Gale Press, 2014. 301-05.)
• Ramsey, Colin and Zabelle Stodola. “Early Dime Novels.” A Companion to American Fiction, 1780-1865. Ed. Shirley Samuels. London: Blackwell, 2005. Print. 262-74.
• Ramsey, Colin. “Cannibalism and Infant Killing: a System of ‘Demonizing’ Motifs in Indian Captivity Narratives.” Clio: A Journal of Literature, History, and the Philosophy of History 24 (1995): 55-68. (Rpt. in Literary Criticism, 1400-1800. Ed. Michael L. LaBlanc. Vol. 82. Detroit:The Gale Group, 2003. 134-40.)

Academic Journalism and Interviews

• Ramsey, Colin and Martha McCaughey. “Faculty Copyrights,” (Interview) Academe Blog Online. 28 Sept. 2012. Web. 10 Dec. 2012.
• Ramsey, Colin. “Finding Boone in Boone.” High Country Magazine April-May. 2008: 94-97. Print.

Reviews and Reference

• Insatiable Appetites: Imperial Encounters with Cannibals in the North Atlantic World, by Kelly L. Watson. (forthcoming in Early American Literature, September 2017)
• Jeremiah’s Scribes: Creating Sermon Literature in Puritan New England, by Meredith Marie Neuman. SHARP-News, 24.3 (2015): 23-24. Print.
• Ramsey, Colin. "Dime Novels.” The Literary Encyclopedia. The Literary Dictionary Company Limited. 24 January 2008. Web. 10 January 2009.
• Debating the Issues in Colonial Newspapers, by David A. Copeland. Journal of American Periodicals 13, (2003); 117-118.
• Growing Up Simple in Texas, by George Arnold. Southwest Historical Quarterly CV (July 2003):143-144.
• “Ann Richards.” Great Lives From History: American Women. Salem Press, 5 vols. 1st ed. 1995.

Biography:

Dr. Ramsey received his BA from the University of Iowa, his MA from the University of Arkansas-Little Rock, and his PhD from the University of Missouri. His research interests include colonial and nineteenth-century American literature and the History of the Book, with a focus on relations between the material text and conceptions of authorship. Current scholarly projects include a study of manuscript or "scribal" publication in eighteenth century America and a critical edition of the John Rollin Ridge’s early nineteenth-century novel The Life and Adventures of Joaquin Murieta, the Celebrated California Bandit, the first novel written by a Native American.

His recent publications include “National Treasure, the Declaration of Independence, and the Erasure of Print from the American Revolution” in The Cinematic Eighteenth Century: History, Culture, and Adaptation, forthcoming in June 2017 from Routledge Press, and “Copyrights for Academics in the Digital Age,” in the journal Academe. He has also published on topics as varied as Benjamin Franklin’s stove, the Indian captivity narrative and myths of cannibalism and infanticide, and colonial American newspapers.

He has been an International Bibliography Fellow of the Modern Language Association, and is a member of the editorial board of the American literature division of Wiley-Blackwell Press’s Literature Compass. He currently serves a member of the Board of Directors of the North Carolina AAUP Foundation, and has has served as Treasurer of that organization. He has also served as President of the Appalachian State Chapter of the AAUP, as elected delegate to the UNC Faculty Assembly, and as an ASU Faculty Senator, where he was Chair of the Senate Committee on Student Welfare. Current university service includes the Gift Acceptance Committee. He is a past winner of the Appalachian AAUP Award for Outstanding Contribution to Academic Freedom and Faculty Governance.

Administrative experience includes having been the Director of the Appalachian State University Common Reading Program (2012-2016), Director of Graduate Programs in English (2008-2012), and as Acting Assistant Department Chair of the Appalachian State English Department (2016).