Ross K. Tangedal
About
Ross K. Tangedal
Since 2016, I have been Assistant Professor of English and Director of the Cornerstone Press at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. I am the author of The Preface: American Authorship in the Twentieth Century (Palgrave Macmillan 2021), co-editor (w/ Joshua M. Murray) of Editing the Harlem Renaissance (Clemson University Press 2021), and co-editor (w/ Lisa DuRose and Andy Oler) of Michigan Salvage: Approaches to the Fiction of Bonnie Jo Campbell (under advance contract with Michigan State University Press). My articles have been published in a number of journals, including Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, South Atlantic Review, the Hemingway Review, the F. Scott Fitzgerald Review, Authorship, and others.
My areas of research and teaching expertise include American print & publishing culture, book history (1800-the present), bibliography (descriptive, analytical, and enumerative), authorship, and textual editing (documentary and scholarly), with emphasis on Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and the American Midwest. I am a contributing editor for the Hemingway Letters Project (Cambridge University Press), as well as associate volume editor of the forthcoming Volume 6: The Letters of Ernest Hemingway (1934-1936) (Cambridge University Press 2023).
Ross K. Tangedal, Ph.D.
American Print & Publishing Culture | Book History
Bibliography | Authorship | Textual Editing
RESEARCH
Ross K. Tangedal
Books
The Preface: American Authorship in the Twentieth Century
Palgrave Macmillan, November 2021
New Directions in Book History Series
“In The Preface, Ross K. Tangedal examines an often-overlooked textual element in literature: an opening commentary (either current or in retrospect) by an author about a particular work of fiction. The author addresses the reader directly to recall the creation of the work, to reply to
critics, and to assert authority over interpretation. Tangedal’s approach in this excellent new monograph yields a great many fresh and valuable insights, both critical and biographical.”
—James L. W. West III
Sparks Professor of English, Emeritus
Pennsylvania State University, Author of American Authors
and the Literary Marketplace since 1900
“Ross K. Tangedal’s The Preface: American Authorship in the Twentieth Century offers an expansive, inclusive take on a textual tradition that most readers consider the print equivalent of a hello. Tangedal’s multi-level discussion of this device demonstrates how integral it is to theories of authorship, and how major novelists from Willa Cather to Toni Morrison, and now-overlooked writers like Ring Lardner, employed it to fashion their personae for public consumption. From F. Scott Fitzgerald’s early self-deprecation (which did not serve him well) to Ernest Hemingway’s pugilistic professionalism to Robert Penn Warren’s obsession with historical motive, Tangedal reveals the range writers display and the risks they undertake in this textual space.”
—Kirk Curnutt
Professor of English, Troy University
Editor of American Literature in Transition, 1970–1980
Editing the Harlem Renaissance
Clemson University Press, June 2021
African American Literature Series
co-edited with Joshua M. Murray
“With a wide-ranging, erudite, and accessible suite of essays, Editing the Harlem Renaissance is a profoundly useful and long-awaited volume on an understudied yet essential facet of African American literature and Black textual production writ large. As it productively stretches common understandings of what constitutes editing, the volume puts a much-needed spotlight onto key figures, editorial practices, and publications—old and new—that played essential roles in fashioning, curating, collecting, and essentially creating what we now know as the Harlem Renaissance. This excellent book is to be celebrated, not only for what it already achieves, but also, we must hope, for helping to herald a new age of Black bibliography.”
—Jean-Christophe Cloutier
author of Shadow Archives: The Lifecycles of African American Literature
“Examining ‘editorial genealogies and futures,’ this timely collection approaches editing the Harlem Renaissance as both a historical project and an ongoing activity—a kind of ‘care work’ broadly conceived to include not only editing magazines, anthologies, and critical editions, but also bibliography, librarianship, recovery work, introductory essays, computational analysis, and curation of websites and digital archives. Adopting a range of methods and a lucid, engaging style of delivery, the contributors elevate the often invisible, undervalued labor of editing, demonstrating that this “’work of many hands’ was and remains essential to what is now called the Harlem Renaissance.”
—Suzanne Churchill
author of The Little Magazine Others and the Renovation of Modern American Poetry
Articles and Chapters
My work has been published in various journals, including Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, South Atlantic Review, the Hemingway Review, the F. Scott Fitzgerald Review, Authorship, MidAmerica, and Midwestern Miscellany. Along with an essay in Editing the Harlem Renaissance, I have also contributed to a number of essay collections, including Approaches to Teaching the Poetry of Robert Frost, F. Scott Fitzgerald: A Composite Biography, Teaching Hemingway and Race, Teaching Hemingway and the Natural World, A Scattering Time: How Modernism Met Midwestern Culture, and Handbook of the American Short Story.
Editorial Work
I currently serve as a contributing editor for the Hemingway Letters Project, a multi-volume series of the correspondence of Ernest Hemingway, published by Cambridge University Press. I am associate volume editor of the forthcoming volume 6: The Letters of Ernest Hemingway (1934-1936). In recent years, I have edited the first edition of John Herrmann's lost World War I novel Foreign Born, as well as a new edition of Charles McCarthy's history of the progressive era in Wisconsin, The Wisconsin Idea (w/ Jeff Snowbarger).
TEACHING
Ross K. Tangedal
I teach a variety of English courses at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, as part of both the Cornerstone Press operations and the English Department's major emphasis in Writing, Editing, and Publishing (WEP). Our publishing program is staffed year-round with three primary courses: Editing and Publishing (Fall), Book and Publication Design (Spring), and Small Press Management (Summer). These courses produce all titles released by the Cornerstone Press, amounting to four books published per year. Check out the press website for more details.
In addition to practical, curricular publishing offerings, I also teach print studies courses for our major: Book History, Editorial Process, and The Profession of Authorship. These courses provide students with a detailed survey of writing studies, print culture studies, editorial theory and practice, and bibliography. I also teach multiple sections of freshman and sophomore composition, and on occasion I have taught Creative Nonfiction, Advanced Freshman English, and Intermediate Composition. I am currently developing courses in copyediting and publication for teachers to serve our English Education program.
Education
Ph.D., Kent State University, English, 2015
Kenneth R. Pringle Dissertation Fellow
M.A., Montana State University, English, 2010
B.A., summa cum laude, Montana State University, English literature, 2008
professional Appointments
Assistant Professor, English, University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, 2016-present
Director & Publisher, Cornerstone Press, University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, 2016-present
Postdoctoral Fellow, English, Mercyhurst University, 2015-2016
publications
Book
The Preface: American Authorship in the Twentieth Century. Palgrave Macmillan, 2021, xviii, 220.
Edited Books
Associate Editor. The Letters of Ernest Hemingway (1934-1936). Edited by Sandra Spanier, Verna Kale, and Miriam Mandel. Cambridge University Press, forthcoming 2023.
Michigan Salvage: Approaches to the Fiction of Bonnie Jo Campbell. Edited by Lisa DuRose, Ross K. Tangedal, and Andy Oler. Michigan State University Press, under advance contract.
Editing the Harlem Renaissance. Edited by Joshua M. Murray and Ross K. Tangedal. Clemson University Press, 2021, xii, 300 pp.
The Wisconsin Idea. By Charles McCarthy. 1912. Edited by Ross K. Tangedal and Jeff Snowbarger. Cornerstone Press, xxx, 304 pp.
Foreign Born. By John Herrmann. Edited by Ross K. Tangedal. Hastings College Press, xxviii, 290 pp.
Journal Articles (refereed)
“Bonnie Jo Campbell (1962–): A Descriptive Bibliography.” Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, vol. 115, no. 4, 2021, pp. 463–506.
“Fertile and Quiescent: Midwestern Memory in Bonnie Jo Campbell’s ‘Winter Life.’” MidAmerica, vol. 47, 2020, pp. 65–76.
“I’m Inclined to Believe: Editing Uncertainty in the Ending(s) to Nella Larsen’s Passing.” South Atlantic Review, vol. 84, nos. 2–3, 2019, pp. 205–223.
“Alone and Alone: Defense, Justification, and Apology in Fitzgerald’s Late Prefaces.” F. Scott Fitzgerald Review, vol. 15, 2017, pp. 51–71.
“Breaking Forelegs: Hemingway’s Early Prefaces.” Hemingway Review, vol. 37, no. 1, 2017, pp. 65–82.
“Nothing is Left but the Sky: F. Scott Fitzgerald, Booth Tarkington, and Midwestern Influence.” Midwestern Miscellany, vol. 45, no. 2, 2017, pp. 12–25.
“Refusing the Serious: Authorial Resistance in Ring Lardner’s Prefaces for Scribner’s.” Authorship, vol. 5, no. 2, 2016, pp. 1–11. Reprinted in Twentieth Century Literary Criticism, vol. 409, 2021, pp. 78–85.
“‘At Last Everyone Had Something to Talk About’: Gloria’s War in Fitzgerald’s The Beautiful and Damned.” Midwestern Miscellany, vol. 44, 2016, pp. 68–81.
“My Own Personal Public: Fitzgerald’s Table of Contents in Tales of the Jazz Age.” F. Scott Fitzgerald Review, vol. 13, 2015, pp. 130–145.
“Excuse the Preface: Hemingway’s Introductions for Other Writers.” Hemingway Review, vol. 34, no. 2, 2015, pp. 72–90.
“Designed to Amuse: Hemingway’s The Torrents of Spring and Intertextual Comedy.” MidAmerica, vol. 41, 2014, pp. 11–22.
“This Storm is What We Call Progress: Whitman, Kushner, and Transnational Crisis.” The Quint: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly from the North, vol. 5, no.1, 2012, pp. 74–88.
Book Chapters (refereed)
“Buffalo, New York (1904–1905).” F. Scott Fitzgerald: A Composite Biography, edited by David A. Rennie and Niklas Salmose. University of Minnesota Press, forthcoming 2022.
“Something They Recognize: Working with Robert Frost’s New Hampshire.” Approaches to Teaching the Poetry of Robert Frost, edited by Sean Heuston. Modern Language Association of America, forthcoming 2022.
“Ernest Hemingway.” Handbook of the American Short Story, edited by Erik Redling and Oliver Scheiding. De Gruyter, 2022, pp. 305–318.
“Clad in the Beautiful Dress One Expects: Editing and Curating the Harlem Renaissance Text.” Editing the Harlem Renaissance, edited by Joshua M. Murray and Ross K. Tangedal. Clemson University Press, 2021, pp. 63–83.
“Hemingway’s Experts: Teaching Race in Death in the Afternoon and Green Hills of Africa.” Teaching Hemingway and Race, edited by Gary Edward Holcomb. Kent State University Press, 2018, pp. 29–40.
“That Time in Chicago: Midwestern Memory in Nella Larsen’s Passing.” A Scattering Time: How Modernism Met Midwestern Culture, edited by Sara Kosiba. Hastings College Press, 2018, pp. 17–31.
“A Few Practical Things: Death in the Afternoon and Hemingway’s Natural Pedagogy.” Teaching Hemingway and the Natural World, edited by Kevin Maier. Kent State University Press, 2018, pp. 178–191.
Review Essay
“The Hells of War.” Rev. of War Isn’t the Only Hell: A New Reading of American World War I Literature, by Keith Gandal; Points of Honor by Thomas Boyd, edited by Steven Trout. F. Scott Fitzgerald Review, vol. 16, 2018, pp. 265–72.
editorial experience
Managing Editor, Midwest Review (2022–present)
Editorial Team, Hemingway Letters Project, Pennsylvania State University (2018–present)
Volume Advisor, Twentieth Century Literary Criticism (2019–2021)
Volume Advisor, Children’s Literature Review (2019–2020)
Essays Section Editor, Scholarly Editing, Association for Documentary Editing (2019–2021)
Guest Editor (w/ Andy Oler), Midwestern Miscellany, vol. 48, no. 1, 2020
Guest Editor, Midwestern Miscellany, vol. 45, no. 2, 2017
recent fellowships, grants, & Awards
Nominee (w/ Joshua M. Murray), SAMLA Studies Book Award, Editing the Harlem Renaissance (Clemson UP 2021), South Atlantic Modern Language Association, 2022
COLS Fund for Innovation Award ($1,220), College of Letters and Science (UWSP), 2022
L & S Enhancement Grant ($1,150), College of Letters and Science, UWSP, 2020
University Scholar Award ($1,000), UWSP, 2019
Lewis-Reynolds-Smith Founders Fellowship ($1,000), Ernest Hemingway Society, 2019
L & S Enhancement Grant ($2,600), College of Letters and Science, UWSP, 2019
Summer Publishing Fellowship ($12,000), College of Letters and Science, UWSP, 2018
Nominee, University Scholar Award, UWSP, 2018
New Faculty Research Grant ($3,000), College of Letters and Science, UWSP, 2017
courses taught (UWSP)
Advanced Freshman English
Book and Publication Design
Book History
Creative Nonfiction
Editing and Publishing
Editorial Process: Theory and Practice
Freshman English
Intermediate Composition
Major Authors: Ernest Hemingway & F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Profession of Authorship
Publication for Teachers
Senior Honors Project: Product
Senior Honors Project: Research
Small Press Management
Sophomore English
Workshop in English
Writing Internship