Alex Mouw teaches courses in creative writing, composition, and literature. His work explores lyric poetic traditions, modernism, and American culture. His first book of poetry, The Unbelieving Yelp of Prey, is forthcoming in 2026. His current academic book project, Poets Against History: American Lyric and Historiography after 1945, argues that postwar American poets have competed with the work of historians in an effort to transcend history, to correct its gaps, or to change its course. His poetry appears in many journals, including The Southern Review, The Massachusetts Review, and West Branch. His scholarship on American literature appears in Twentieth-Century Literature, African American Review, Literature & Theology, and other venues.

Before joining the Samford faculty, Mouw was a graduate student in English at Washington University in St. Louis, as well as a fellow in American Studies. At WashU, he also worked in the Writing Center and the Center for Teaching and Learning, experiences that inform his pedagogy and approach to a liberal education.

Degrees and Certifications

• PhD in English and American Literature, Washington University in St. Louis
• MFA in Creative Writing, Purdue University

Selected Publications

• Poems in Nimrod, North American Review, The Minnesota Review, and other journals
• “‘I lock you in an American closet’: Terrance Hayes’s Public Lyric and American Antiauthoritarianism,” African American Review, 57.3-4 (Fall/Winter 2024)
• “‘Free to act by your own lights’: Agency and Predestination in Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead Novels,” Literature and Theology 2 (Summer 2021)

Honors and Awards

• Dean’s Award for Graduate Research Excellence, Washington University in St. Louis, 2023
• Archival Research Grants from the University of Minnesota and Vassar College
• Graduate Fellowship, Lilly Network of Church-Related Colleges & Universities, 2014-17