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.