Department of English

Academic Specialty:

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

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 T. “I Know as Well as Thee, That I Am No Poet Born”: Benjamin Franklin’s Autodidactic Uses of Poetry,” forthcoming in 1650-1850: Ideas, Aesthetics, and Inquiries in the Early Modern Era, and winner of the 2024 President’s Prize of the South Central Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies.
• Ramsey, Colin T. “Becoming Dr. Franklin: Benjamin Franklin’s Science, Manuscript Circulation, and ‘Anti-Authorship’ in Print.” After Print: Eighteenth-Century Manuscript Cultures, edited by Rachael Scarborough King, University of Virginia Press, 2020, pp. 195–214. JSTOR, https://doi-org.proxy006.nclive.org/10.2307/j.ctvxbpf9s.12. Accessed 27 May 2026.
• Ramsey, Colin T. “From The Boston News-Letter to the ‘Couranteers’: Epistolarity, Reportage, and Entertaining Literature in Colonial American Newspapers.” The Routledge Companion to American Literary Journalism, Edited by William Dow and Roberta McGuire, Routledge Press, 2020, pp. 17-27.
• Ramsey, Colin T. “An Introduction to Learned and Sociable Manuscript Circulation: the Case of Benjamin Franklin’s Poetic Epitaph.” Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture, vol. 48, 2019, p. 51-56. Project MUSE, https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/sec.2019.0004.
• 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:

Colin T. Ramsey is Emeritus Professor of American Literature at Appalachian State University. His research interests include colonial and nineteenth-century American literature and the History of the Book, with a focus on the relationships between material texts, media forms, and conceptions of authorship. 

His recent publications include, “I Know as Well as Thee, That I Am No Poet Born”: Benjamin Franklin’s Autodidactic Uses of Poetry,” which is forthcoming in the journal 1650-1850: Ideas, Aesthetics, and Inquiries in the Early Modern Era, and “Becoming Dr. Franklin: Benjamin Franklin’s Science, Manuscript Circulation, and ‘Anti-Authorship’ in Print,” which appears in the book After Print: Eighteenth-Century Manuscript Cultures, published by the University of Virginia Press.

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, served as long-time treasurer for the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing, and he is currently the President of the South Central Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies. 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. 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).