Mark Jeffreys manuscripts
Scope and Contents
The Mark Jeffreys manuscripts collection consists of material created and collected by poet, author, and scholar Mark Jeffreys from 1984 to 2024. The bulk of the materials are drafts or printed manuscripts of Jeffrey's creative works. The Manuscripts, papers series contains drafts and unfinished works -- including what Jeffreys labeled as "The Old Poems" dating to around 1984 to 1987 -- notes, and ephemera. The Prose, Poems, Memoirs series contains his published materials in volumes, mostly from 2011 or later, and a folder of correspondence. There is a particular focus on materials written in and about the locations Jeffreys lived and spent time, such as Birmingham, Alabama, Atlanta, Georgia, and British Columbia, Canada, as well as personal relationships.
The Academic Career material includes a curriculum vitae, handmade calendars with notes, and a binder of his tenure files and academic publications from his time at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Additional academic publications were separated and added to Special Collections (See the Separated Materials note for a list).
Dates
- Creation: 1984 - 2024
- Creation: undated
Creator
- Jeffreys, Mark. (Person)
Conditions Governing Access
The collection is open and freely available to researchers during Special Collections’ hours or by appointment. Researchers must complete an Application for Use and show a photo ID prior to accessing materials.
Conditions Governing Use
Copyright restrictions apply.
Biographical / Historical
Mark Jeffreys passed away on January 26, 2025 at the age of 62. Born on August 31, 1962 to Harriet and James Robert Jeffreys, in Chilton Hospital, Pompton Plains, New Jersey, Mark grew up in Lincoln Park, New Jersey.
He attended The Stony Brook School, a Christian academy on Long Island where he was encouraged to learn about the history of rock and roll, sparking an interest in writing and culture. Mark earned an MA in English at the University of Montana. He completed a Ph.D. in English Literature from Emory University in 1990 and later did a second Ph.D. from the University of Utah in Anthropology around 2003.
Throughout his life, Mark traveled extensively across the globe, including to Namibia, New Zealand, England, Scotland, and Russia. He spent many summers in British Columbia, Canada with his daughter Sequoia.
Mark's academic career spanned several institutions. He taught at Morehouse College, the University of Alabama at Birmingham, the University of Utah, Utah Valley University, and Utah Tech University. He wrote about poetry, technology, and disability studies. During the later part of his life, he was drafting poetry continually, always jotting down phrases that resonated with him.
Mark is survived by his daughter Sequoia, and siblings: Alleene Dean, Clark Jeffreys, Kimberly Dillon, James E. Jeffreys, and Alice DeNino. He was preceded in death by his brothers, John Jeffreys and Peter Jeffreys, and parents Harriet and James Robert Jeffreys.
His memorial/wake was held on Saturday, February 8, 2025 in Springdale, Utah.
[adapted from obituary written by Nancy Ross]
Partial Extent
4.25 Linear Feet (2 blue/grey cubic foot boxes, 1 grey letter document case, 4 grey deed boxes)
Partial Extent
33.773 Megabytes (12 application/msword (docx), 12 application/pdf, and 5 text/xml files)
Language of Materials
English
Abstract
The Mark Jeffreys manuscripts collection consists of material created and collected by poet, author, and scholar Mark Jeffreys from 1984 to 2024. The bulk of the materials are drafts or printed manuscripts of Jeffrey's creative works. Some material related to his academic career as a professor and researcher is also included.
Arrangement
The Mark Jeffreys manuscripts collection is arranged in three series, loosely following categories Jeffreys used to describe his works. The Manuscripts, papers series is divided into two sub-series by type. Materials within the first two series are arranged in approximate chronological order, with correspondence following the published works in the Prose, Poems, Memoirs series. The third series is arranged alphabetically by topic then chronologically. Origninal order was maintained when possible, as in groupings of poems/creative writing in the Manuscrips, papers series and in the tenure files in the Academic Career series.
Series I Manuscripts, papers, 1984-2011, undated
Subseries A Creative Writing, 1984-2011, undated
Subsearies B Ephemera, 1990-1998, unated
Series II Prose, Poems, Memoirs, 1990-2024
Series III Academic Career, 1987-2007
Academic Publications
The following publications were removed from the collection to be cataloged and added to Special Collections:
Jeffreys, Mark, and Debra Fried. Teaching with the norton anthology of poetry: A guide for instructors. New York: W.W. Norton, 1997.
Jeffreys, Mark. “Dispoetics.” Disability Studies Quarterly 17, no. 4 (1997): 301–4.
Jeffreys, Mark. “Dr. Daedalus and His Minotaur: Mythic Warnings about Genetic Engineering from J.B.S. Haldane, François Jacob, and Andrew Niccol’s Gattaca.” Journal of Medical Humanities 22, no. 2 (2001): 137–52.
Jeffreys, Mark. “Eliot’s Angels.” Review 22 (2000): 177–90.
Jeffreys, Mark. “Natural-Language ‘Cheap Talk’ Enables Coordination on A Social-Dilemma Game in a Culturally Homogeneous Population.” In The Evolution of Language: Proceedings of the 6th International Conference (EVOLANG6), Rome, Italy, 12-15 April 2006, edited by Angelo Cangelosi, Andrew D. M. Smith, and Kenny Smith, 145–51. Hackensack, NJ: World Scientific, 2006.
Jeffreys, Mark. New definitions of Lyric: Theory, Technology, and Culture. New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1998.
Jeffreys, Mark. “Songs and Inscriptions: Brevity and the Idea of Lyric.” Texas Studies in Literature and Language 36, no. 2 (1994): 117–34.
Jeffreys, Mark. “The Mona Lisa and the Symbol of Ideas: Pater’s Leda as Mother to Yeats’s Helen.” Colby Quarterly XXIX, no. 1 (March 1993): 20–32.
Jeffreys, Mark. “The Rhetoric of Authority in T. S. Eliot’s ‘Athenaeum’ Reviews.” South Atlantic Review 57, no. 4 (November 1992): 93–108.
Jeffreys, Mark. “The Visible Cripple (Scars and Other Disfiguring Displays Included).” Essay. In Disability Studies: Enabling the Humanities, 31–39. New York: The Modern Language Association of America, 2002.
Jeffreys, Mark. “The Visible Cripple (Scars and Other Disfiguring Displays Included).” Essay. In Rhetorical Visions: Writing and Reading in a Visual Culture, 51–62. Boston, MA: Pearson Custom Publishing, 2005.
Jeffreys, Mark. “‘Mélange Adultère de Tout’ and T.S. Eliot’s Quest for Identity, Belonging, and the Transcendence of Belonging.” Journal of Modern Literature 18, no. 4 (1993): 395–409
Genre / Form
Geographic
Occupation
Topical
- Status
- Completed
- Author
- Caitlinn Grimm, Interim Head of Special Collections/Archivist
- Date
- June 2025
- Description rules
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin
Repository Details
Part of the Utah Tech University Special Collections and Archives Repository
330 Holland Centennial Commons
225 South 700 East
Saint George 84770 United States
(435) 634-2087
specialcollections@utahtech.edu