Joseph E.A. Alexis

Born 1885-07-22 York, NE (USA)

Died 1969-08-15
Lincoln, NE (USA)

Buried
Lincoln, NE (USA)
Wyuka Cemetery

Famous linguist who taught many languages at the University of Nebraska. He came to the University in 1910 and was Chairman of the Germanic Languages Department from 1933 to 1940, then served as Chair of the Modern Languages Department from 1940 until his retirement in 1950. Dr. Alexis taught English, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Portuguese, Italian, German, Icelandic, Hebrew, French, Spanish, Gothic, Old High German, Greek, Latin and Russian. Dr. Alexis was knighted by King Gustav V of Sweden in 1944 in recognition of the professor's work as an author and educator.

Places Lived

York, NE
Rock Island, IL
Ann Arbor, MI
Lincoln, NE
Chicago, IL
Davidson, NC
Lund, Sweden
Madrid, Spain
Paris, France

Author Of

Nonfiction

Keywords

Modern Languages; Linguistics; Textbooks

Education

BA, 1905, Augustana College, Rock Island, IL
MA, 1906, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI
PhD, 1918, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL
PhD, 1930, University of Paris, Paris, France

Occupation

Professor of Languages, University of Nebraska, Lincoln
Professor, Rice University, Houston, TX
Professor, Augustana College, Rock Island, IL
Professor, Davidson College, Davidson, NC
Author

Places Worked

University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE
Rice University, Houston, TX
Augustana College, Rock Island, IL
Davidson College, Davidson, NC

Honors

Knight of the Royal Order of Vasa (Sweden), 1944

Associations

Nebraska Authors' Guild
Linguistic Society of America
Modern Language Association of America
Society for Advancement of Scandinavian Study, Founder and Past President
Lincoln Rotary Club, President
Lincoln Farmer's Club, President
Lincoln Chamber of Commerce, Member
Alliance Francaise de Lincoln, Vice President
Unsuccessful Candidate for Congress and Senate, 1950 and 1954

Bibliography

Geijerstam's Mina Pojkar. 1911. (editor)
German Relatives in Eighteenth Century Prose. 1919.
First Course in German. 1919.
Strindberg's Master Olaf. 1921.
Strindberg's Pask. 1921.
Strindberg's Stories and Poems. 1924.
First Course in Spanish. 1925.
The Ice Is Breaking1925. (translator)
Lazarillo de Tormes. 1927.
Valdes' Riverita. 1928.

Was also a contributor to:
Encyclopedia Americana
Prairie Schooner
Nebraska Historical Society Publications

We appreciate corrections and additions to our information about authors, but please read the following guidelines and caveats carefully.

The Nebraska Authors database is based on publicly available sources. Unless you are the author contacting us in person, it helps us if you cite the source or sources of your information. We cannot include unsourced information in the database.
We may be appreciative of information we choose not to include in the publicly available database.
To include an image on an author profile, please send jpg attachment to nebraskaauthors@lincoln.ne.gov. A photo-release agreement is required before the image will be published on this site.
Because of the way we are staffed, expect corrections or additions to take time, sometimes up to three months.
While we initially included some actual links to external URLs in the database, we will in the future no longer provide functioning links. We will instead record the presence of specific external materials in language that we hope will help intelligent users find it themselves. Web rot, in which actual materials remain online but undergo changes in their URLs, is too demanding in terms of staff time for us to hope to keep external links current.

Please copy, fill out the form below, and email it to NebraskaAuthors@lincoln.ne.gov to suggest a change.