Kris Alexanderson, Ph.D.

Assistant Teaching Professor

Office: MacAlister 5025
Phone: (215) 895-0992
Email: kda37@drexel.edu

Curriculum Vitae: Download

Education

• B.A., Historical Studies, Bard College, 1999
• Ph.D., History, Rutgers University, 2011

Biography

I am an Assistant Teaching Professor in the Department of History & Politics at Drexel University. I teach courses on the history of technology, gender and technology, and world history from the twelfth century to the present.

My dissertation, “Fluid Mobility: Global Maritime Networks and the Dutch Empire, 1918-1942,” offers a fresh investigation of European empire through the lens of oceanic history. I argue that the maritime world became a contested arena during the interwar years where the tensions of empire comingled with the liberating and transgressive possibilities of oceanic travel. My project demonstrates how Dutch anxieties over the weakening of imperial dominion in Southeast Asia focused on a transnational and transoceanic colonial control during a time of increasing political unrest and rapid cultural change within the Netherlands East Indies.

Publications

• "Karen Blixen," The Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History, 2008.
• "The Maritime Lens: A New Approach to Colonial History," article manuscript in preparation.
• "Fluid Mobility: Global Maritime Networks and Modern Imperialism," book manuscript in preparation.