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David Alff
Associate Professor of English
University at Buffalo College of Arts and Sciences
AREAS OF EXPERTISE:
Infrastructure history, railroad history, high-speed trains, public works, literature, literary studies
David Alff is an expert in the 18th-century Anglophone world who can speak to the news media on a variety of topics in the areas of history and literature.
His most recent book “The Northeast Corridor: The Trains, the People, the History, the Region,” examines the history of railroad lines in Northeastern United States.
Alff is writing a monograph, “Rights of Way: A Literary Approach to Infrastructure,” which shows how 17th- and 18th-century legal debates helped bring about the road, rail, shipping and pipeline networks that define our modern world. It argues that early ideas about passage and property continue to shape the development of infrastructure today.
His is also the author of “The Wreckage of Intentions: Projects in British Culture, 1660-1730,” which investigated the origins of projects, which Alff defines as concrete, yet incomplete efforts to advance British society.
CONTACT:
David Alff, PhD
Associate Professor of English
University at Buffalo College of Arts and Sciences
- 215-808-2588
- dalff@buffalo.edu
- David Alff's website