Helen Blythe
Professor
Department of English & Philosophy
New Mexico Highlands University
Las Vegas, NM 87701, USA
Phone: 505-454-3329
Email: helenblythe@nmhu.edu
CURRICULUM VITAE
- Position
- Education
- Teaching and Research Interest
- Publications
- Works in Progress
- Awards and Honors
- Grants and Fellowships
- Graduate Theses Directed 2012-2018
- Teaching
- Conference Presentations& Invited Lectures
- Professional Activities and Academic Service
- Membership
- Languages
Professor, Department of English, New Mexico Highlands University. 2013-.
Director of Graduate Studies in English. 2015-.
Chair, Department of English, New Mexico Highlands University, 2011-15.
Associate Professor, Department of English, New Mexico Highlands University, 2008-13.
Director of Graduate Studies in English, 2003-10.
Assistant Professor, Department of English, New Mexico Highlands University, 2003-8.
Adjunct Professor: The Alliance for Life-Long Learning (Stanford, Yale, & Oxford), 2000-4.
Lecturer, Program of Writing and Rhetoric, Department of English, Stanford University, 1999-2002.
Ph.D., English, Stanford University, 1998.
M.A., English, University of Auckland, 1989.
B.A., English, University of Auckland, 1987.
TEACHING AND RESEARCH INTERESTS
Nineteenth-century British literature and culture; the novel; narrative, form, and genre studies (romance, pastoral); twentieth-century and contemporary British fiction; Anglophone and postcolonial literatures and theory.
Book
The Victorian Colonial Romance with the Antipodes. Gordonsville, VT: Palgrave Macmillan Press, 2014.
Chapters in Books
“‘Rubbish and Paste’: Reading and Recurrence in An Old Man’s Love.” The Edinburgh Companion to Anthony Trollope. Ed, David Skilton and Frederik Van Dam. Edinburgh University Press, forthcoming.
“‘My real mission is to make young ladies talk’: Storytelling and Woman’s Voice in Anthony Trollope’s Kept in the Dark (1882). Chapter in The Routledge Research Companion to Anthony Trollope. Ed. Deborah Denenholz Morse, Margaret Markwick, and Mark Turner. Routledge, 2016.
“The Rough and the Beautiful in ‘Catherine Carmichael’; Class and Gender in Trollope’s Colonial Aesthetic.” The Politics of Gender: Trollope in the Twenty-First Century. Ed. Deborah Denenholz Morse and Margaret Markwick. Surrey, UK: Ashgate Press, 2008.
Journal Articles
“Pastoral Permutations within the Colonial Romance: Robert Browning’s “Waring” and Alfred Domett’s Ranolf and Amohia, in COLLOQUY text theory critique 23 (2012).
“The Space between Life and Death; Euthanasia, Cannibalism, and Colonial Extinction in Trollope’s Australia and New Zealand and The Fixed Period,” in Nineteenth-Century Contexts, An Interdisciplinary Journal. Issue 25. 2, Summer 2003.
“Paradise or Hell: Ranolf and Amohia, The New Zealand Colony, and Alfred Domett,” in “The Idea of Place,” special number, Australian-Canadian Studies. Vol. 18. Nos. 1 & 2 (2000): 113-28.
Reviews
Review of Éadaoin Agnew, Imperial Women Writers in Victorian India: Representing Colonial Life, 1850-1910 by; pp. v- 203. London: Palgrave Macmillan Press, 2016.Nineteenth-Century Prose Prose, Summer 2017.
Review of Michelle Keown, Pacific Islands Writing, The Postcolonial Literatures of Aotearoa / New Zealand and Oceania. Oxford Studies in Postcolonial Literatures, Oxford University Press, 2007. South Atlantic Review, Volume 74, No 3, Summer 2009.
“Making Ladies Talk: Repetition and the Voice in Anthony Trollope’s Late Works.” Book project in progress.
“Crystal Forms of Passion and Calm in W. H. Hudson’s A Crystal Age (1887). Article in progress.
1999 Alden Prize for the most distinguished doctoral dissertation in the Department of English, Stanford University
1987 Senior Scholarship, University of Auckland, New Zealand
1987 John Tinline English Prize, University of Auckland, New Zealand
2018 Faculty Travel Grant, New Mexico Highlands University
2004 Faculty Research Grant, New Mexico Highlands University
1998 Stanford Postdoctoral Fellowship in English
1997 New Zealand Federation of University Women Fellowship
1996 English Department Dissertation Fellowship, Stanford University
1995 Graduate Research Opportunity Award, Stanford University
1990 English Department Fellowship, Stanford University
1989 Ph.D. University Grants Committee Scholarship, University of Auckland, NZ.
GRADUATE THESES DIRECTED 2012-2018
Omoyemi Ajsebutu (M.A., 2017), “Removing the Sixth Mountain: Friendship and Inclusion in West African Women’s Fiction.”
Justin Rogers (M.A., 2017), “Oscar Wilde and Refractions of the Self.”
Katrin Silva (M.A. 2017), “Unheard of Things: Narrative Experimentation in the Novels of Bessie Head, Dambudzo Marechera, and Yvonne Vera.”
Ghassan Aburqayeq (M.A. 2016), “Palestinian Narratives of Exile: Home, Resistance, and Nationalism.”
Katherine Lopez (M.A. 2016), “The Comic and the Monstrous in Nineteenth-Century Gothic Parody and Contemporary Zombie Mash-Ups.”
Cecilia Myers (M.A. 2014), “Specters of Imperialism in Malacañang Palace: Language and Hybridity in the Marcos Era Narratives of Gina Apostol’s Gun Dealer’s Daughter and Miguel Syjuco’s Illustrado.”
Lalie Williamson (M.A. 2014), “A Dance of Gender in Fantasy: Gender Performance in George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire Series.”
Guadalupe Mascareñas (M.A. 2012), “Bedfellows: The Marquis de Sade’s Justine and Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange.
Natalie Farr, (M.A., 2008), “’Trains of Thought’: Where is This Train Going.”
Leland Howard, (M.A. 2008), “Changing the Face of Gender: Hollywood 1939-1949.”
Jason Marquez, (M.A., 2006), “Living on the Fringe: Marginality and Resistance in Irving Welsh’s Trainspotting.”
Rachel Trujillo, (M.A. 2004), The Short Stories of Virginia Woolf.”
Courses taught at New Mexico Highlands University
Lower Division
Freshman Composition 2
Introduction to Fiction
British Literature Survey from 1700 to the present
World Literature Survey from 1700 to the present
Upper Division
The Historical Gothic
The Golden Age of Children’s Literature
Jane Austen Mania and the English Novel
Honors: From Reason to Romanticism
Women in Literature
Terror, Vampires, and the Historical Gothic
Major British Writers:
Lord Byron and the “Satanic School of Poetry.”
Imperial Highways: the Nineteenth British Novel
Modernism and Postmodernism
Romance, Realism, and Objects in the Long-Nineteenth Century Novel
Literary Modes: Revisiting the Pastoral
Diamonds, Dust, Forms, and Things
Postcolonial Literature and Theory
Postcolonial and Anglophone Fictions and Theories
Graduate
Research Methods
Methods of Teaching and Tutoring
Literary Theory
Major British Writers:
- Lord Byron and the Satanic School of Poetry
- Imperial Highways: the Nineteenth British Novel
- Modernism and Postmodernism
- Romance, Realism, and Objects in the Long-Nineteenth Century Novel
- Literary Modes: Revisiting the Pastoral
- Diamonds, Dust, Forms, and Things
- Postcolonial Literature and Theory
- Postcolonial and Anglophone Fictions and Theories
The History of the Novel:
- Nineteenth-Century Literature and the British Empire
- Cosmopolitan Fictions, Flights, and Forms
CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS & INVITED LECTURES
“The Interface of Nature and Art in W. H. Hudson’s A Crystal Age.” Literary Interface Conference, Australian National University in Canberra, Australia, 3-8 July, 2018.
“‘Rubbish and Paste’: Cycles of Reading and Recurrence in Trollope’s An Old Man’s Love.” Interdisciplinary Nineteenth-Century Studies Association Conference (INCS), INCS 2018 – Serials, Cycles, Suspensions March 1-4, 2018, San Francisco State University, San Francisco.
“Crystal Forms of Passion and Calm in W. H. Hudson’s A Crystal Age (1887).” Interdisciplinary Nineteenth-Century Studies Association Conference (INCS) 2016 – Natural and Unnatural Histories 10-13 March, 2016, University of North Carolina, Charlotte.
“Mother Trollope: The Mother’s Voice.” The Trollope Bicentennial Conference 17-19 September, University of Leuven, The Irish College, Leven, Belgium, 2015.
“‘From Edward to Edwarda’: Memory as Rubbish, or Memory is a Time Machine.” The Australasian Victorian Studies Association Conference: “The Victorians and Memory,” Auckland, New Zealand. 3-5 February, 2015.
“‘Looking Yonderly’: Mary Taylor, Charlotte Bronte, and Emigration to the Antipodes.” Brown Bag Lecture for Women’s Studies, New Mexico Highlands University, 15 November 2013.
“‘Whoso eateth his dinner is a missionary’: Samuel Butler on crossings and civilizing missions.” Department of English Seminar, University of Auckland, NZ, May 30, 2012.
“Reflections on colonization and the pastoral, or the Victorian romance with the Antipodes.” “Reimagining Pastoral: A Symposium,” University of Queensland, 12 February 2011.
“‘Looking yonderly’ from the colony to Victorian labor & aesthetics; Mary Taylor and Miss Miles, A Tale of Yorkshire Life Sixty Years Ago.” 18th Annual 18th- and 19th-Century British Women Writers Conference: “Journeys,” Texas A & M University, College Station, Texas, 8-10 April, 2010.
“The New Zealander: The ornate man of art presenting his jeweled cane at the slime of Father Thames.” “Flogging a Dead Horse; Are National Literatures Finished?” Conference, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, 10-13 December, 2008.
“The rough and the beautiful in Catherine Carmichael: class and gender in Anthony Trollope’s colonial aesthetic.” EMSAH Seminar, University of Queensland, Australia, October 23, 2008.
“Aesthetic intolerance can be terribly violent”; Anthony Trollope, colonialism and the beautiful.” Department of English Seminar, University of Auckland, New Zealand, August 27, 2008.
“Rough, coarse, and beautiful; intersections of class and gender in Trollope’s colonial aesthetic.” New Mexico Highlands University Faculty Research Day, Kennedy Hall, May 4, 2007.
Jane Austen Tea, Moderator, El Fidel Hotel, Las Vegas, New Mexico, April 2007.
“Pride and Prejudice, and Jane Austen Mania.” Invited Lecture. The Jane Austen Society of North America, New Mexico, Center for the Book, Albuquerque, 30 September, 2006.
“She may suffer much before she may succeed: Women in Trollope’s last little novelistic experiments.” “Trollope and Gender” conference, Exeter University, United Kingdom, July 17-19 2006.
“Pride and Prejudice, and Austen Mania as Popular Culture.” The Michael T. Carroll Lectures on Popular Culture, Ilfeld Auditorium, New Mexico Highlands University, 18 April 2006.
“Shall we never shed blood? Romance or Realism in Robert Louis Stevenson’s South Seas.” The 3rd Annual New Mexico Highlands University Faculty Research Day, 22 April 2005.
“Objects of Terror in the South Seas: R. L. Stevenson and South Sea Tales.” “Victorian Terrors” Conference, The Dickens Project, University of California, Santa Cruz, 5-7 August, 2004.
“Missionary Moreau and the Native Beast-People; H. G. Wells, The Missions, and Polynesia.” “The Victorian World: Britain, the Empire, and the United States in the Nineteenth Century.” The 6th Annual Conference of VISWAS, UCLA, Los Angeles, 25-27 October 2001.
“‘Repeal the Unions; Restore the Heptarchy!’ Anthony Trollope, ‘The State of Ireland,’ and the Distance of English Rule.” “Defining Colonies,” Third Galway Conference on Colonialism, National University of Ireland, Galway, Ireland, 17-20 June 1999.
“Digging Potatoes; Sex and the ‘Working Business’ in Arthur Hugh Clough’s The Bothie of Toper-na-fuosich (1848).” Victorian Interdisciplinary Studies Association of the Western United States Annual Conference, Vancouver, Washington, October 1998.
“Teaching ‘the Pacific’ to Stanford Freshmen; Pacific Voices and the Globalization of Culture.” “Pacific Spaces / Global Marketplaces: Cultural Studies in Pacific Contexts,” Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, July 1998.
“The Space Between Life and Death; The Contiguity of Euthanasia and Colonial Extinction in Anthony Trollope’s Antipodes.” MLA Convention, Toronto, Canada, 1997.
“Barbarous Benevolence; Murder or Philanthropy? Anthony Trollope on Euthanasia, Cremation, and Colonial Extinction.” Interdisciplinary Nineteenth-Century Studies Annual Conference, UC Berkeley, April 1997.
PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES AND ACADEMIC SERVICE
Professional Service
2015- Executive Committee, Australasian Victorian Studies Association
2008-13 Member, Fulbright National Screening Committee (for study/research in New Zealand), selecting candidates for U.S. Student Fulbright and foreign-sponsored awards
Referee
Review of English Studies (Oxford Academic – Oxford Journals)
Post-doctoral Fellowship, Research Foundation Flanders (FWO)
Age, Culture, Humanities: An Interdisciplinary Journal
Departmental and institutional Service
2016- Chair, Graduate Council subcommittee for revision of the Graduate Handbook
2017- Member, International Students Committee, New Mexico Highlands University
2015- Member, Graduate Council, New Mexico Highlands University
2015-17 Tenure and Promotion Committee, New Mexico Highlands University
2015-16 Member, Strategic Planning Committee, New Mexico Highlands University
2015-16 Member, Campus Climate Taskforce Committee, New Mexico Highlands University
2015-15 Member, Faculty Advisory Committee, University Honors, New Mexico Highlands University
2013-14 Faculty Adviser, Bindings, Undergraduate English Club, Department of English, New Mexico Highlands University
2014-15 Member, Search Committee for Assistant Professor (Creative Nonfiction), Department of English, New Mexico Highlands University
2013-14 Member, Search Committee for Assistant Professor (Old English, Linguistics, and History of the English Language), Department of English, New Mexico Highlands University
2012-13 Chair, Search Committee for Assistant Professor (Creative Nonfiction), Department of English, New Mexico Highlands University
2012-13 Member, Search Committee for Assistant Professor (Composition & Rhetoric), Department of English, New Mexico Highlands University
2011-12 Member, Search Committee for Assistant Professor (Creative Nonfiction), Department of English, New Mexico Highlands University
2012-16 Member, Library Committee, New Mexico Highlands University
2007-08 Member, Athletics Committee, New Mexico Highlands University
2009-10 Chair and Member, Subcommittees for Promotion and Tenure, New Mexico Highlands University
2003- Member, Composition Committee, Department of English, New Mexico Highlands University
2007-10 Member, Faculty Research Committee, New Mexico Highlands University
2006-7 Faculty Advisor, GEEKS, M.A. English Club, Department of English, New Mexico Highlands University
2006-07 Member, Academic Affairs Committee, New Mexico Highlands University
2005-06 Member, Faculty Senate, New Mexico Highlands University
2003-06 Outcomes Assessment Committee, New Mexico Highlands University
2005-07 Project Director, Michael T. Carroll Lecture Series in Popular Culture, New Mexico Highlands University
2005 Chair, Search Committee for Assistant Professor (Composition & Rhetoric), Department of English, New Mexico Highlands University
2001-02 Technology Committee, Program in Writing and Rhetoric, Stanford University
1994 Graduate Admissions Committee, English Department, Stanford University
Modern Languages Association
Australasian Victorian Studies Association
North American Victorian Studies Association
National Education Association
American Federation of University Teachers
Spanish (oral and reading knowledge – moderate)
Italian (reading knowledge – fair)