Dr. Linda Helstern
Office: Minard 322C
Phone: 231-5387
Email: Linda.Helstern@ndsu.edu
On leave 2007-08.
I grew up in central Minnesota, but I had never crossed the Red River until I joined the NDSU English
faculty as an assistant professor in 2004. I earned my M.A. at the University of New Mexico in 1995 and my
Ph.D. at Southern Illinois University-Carbondale in 2001, specializing in twentieth century American/Native
American literature.
My classes strongly encourage border crossing between disciplines and cultures. This was the essence of all
the professional writing positions I have held, whether in health care, financial services, or engineering,
and it is the basis of my literary scholarship with its dual focus on contemporary Native American writers,
especially Gerald Vizenor and Louis Owens, and the construction of race and gender in modernist
fiction.
As a Remele Fellow of the North Dakota Humanities Council last year, I worked at the interface between
Native literature and the history of post-World War II Japan. I have also found chaos theory
(mathematics/physics) and disability studies relevant to Native literature.
Although not teaching in Fargo this year, I will be crossing the Atlantic in March to teach Literature and
the Changing Environment at the Maastricht Center for Transatlantic Studies and learn more about the
European response to global warming. Along with writing, I typically teach the American literature survey,
literature and the environment, multicultural literature, Native American literature, and modern
poetry.
Last updated, August 18, 2007.