Linda Lizut Helstern
EDUCATION
Ph.D. in English, Southern Illinois University-Carbondale, 2001
Dissertation: “Trickster Chaos: Old Stories and New Science in the Postindian Novel”
College of Liberal Arts Outstanding Dissertation 2001-02
M.A. in English, University of New Mexico
B.A. in English with honors, magna cum laude, Hamline University
Additional Study
North Dakota State University, 2004-05. (Ojibwe Language.)
Berkeley Summer Research Seminars in the Humanities: American Identities.
University of California, Berkeley, 1997. (Native American Studies/American Studies.)
American Studies Institute. University of California, Berkeley, 1995. (Native American Studies.)
Art of the Wild. University of California, Davis, 1993 and 1994. (Creative Writing.)
Traditional Pueblo Pottery Making. 1992. SIUC/Dolores Lewis Garcia and Emma Lewis Mitchell.
Southern Illinois University, Carbondale 1984-85. (Museum Studies.)
SELECTED PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
2009- English, North Dakota State University Associate Professor
2008 Maastricht Center for Transatlantic Studies Assistant Professor
2004-09 English, North Dakota State University Assistant Professor
2003-04 English, University of Texas-Pan American Assistant Professor/Graduate Faculty
2002-03 English, University of Texas-Pan American Lecturer
2002 Women’s Studies, SIU, Carbondale Lecturer
1991-2002 College of Engineering, SIU, Carbondale Assistant to the Dean, External Affairs
1998-99 English, SIU, Carbondale Adjunct Instructor
1986-91 College of Engineering, SIU, Carbondale Public Information Specialist
1982-86 Coal Research Center, SIU, Carbondale Corporate Development Assistant
1979-81 Shawnee Health Service
and Development Corporation, Carbondale Project Developer
SCHOLARLY PUBLCIATIONS
Books
Louis Owens. Western Writers Series 168. Boise: Boise State University, 2005.
Guest Editor, Southwestern American Literature 34.1 (Fall 2008) special issue: The Atomic Southwest. Pub. 2009.
Journal Articles
“Trickster Chaos in Turbulent Flow: Louis Owens’ Dark River.” ISLE (Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature
and the Environment) 17.2 (Spring 2010): 327-48.
“Guest Editor’s Introduction: The Atomic Southwest.” Southwestern American Literature 34.1 (Fall 2008): 9-14.
Pub. 2009.
“Identity and the Fictions of Disability.” Profils Americains: Gerald Vizenor 20 (2008): 11-30.
“My Ántonia and the Making of the Great Race.” Western American Literature 42.3 (Fall 2007): 255-74.
“Who the Hell Is Donna Green?” Southwestern American Literature 28.2 (Spring 2003): 15-20.
“’Bad Breath’: Gerald Vizenor’s Lacanian Fable.” Studies in Short Fiction 36.4 (1999): 131-41. Pub. 2002.
“Mixedbloods: Stereotypes and Inversion in The Yogi of Cockroach Court.” South Dakota Review 40.2
(Summer 2002): 132-39.
“Indians, Woodcraft, and the Construction of White Masculinity: The Boyhood of Nick Adams.” Hemingway
Review 20.1 (Fall 2000): 61-78.
"Gerald Vizenor: An Annotated Bibliography of Criticism." Studies in American Indian Literatures 11.1
(Spring 1999): 30-80.
"The Man Who Killed the Deer: Stories within Stories." Studies in Frank Waters 20 (1998): 73-87.
"Nightland and the Mythic West." Studies in American Indian Literatures 10.2 (Summer 1998): 61-78.
"Blue Smoke and Mirrors: Griever's Buddhist Heart." Studies in American Indian Literatures 9.1 (Spring
1997): 33-47.
Chapters in Professional Books
“Museum Survivance: Vizenor Before and After Repatriation.” Gerald Vizenor: Texts and Contexts. Ed. A.
Robert Lee and Deborah Madsen. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2010. 231-48. Pub. 2011.
“‘the land behind the landscape’: Postcards from Jim Barnes.” The Salt Companion to Jim Barnes.
Ed. A Robert Lee. Cambridge, U.K.: Salt Press, 2010. 37-57.
“Shifting the Ground: Theories of Survivance in From Sand Creek and Hiroshima Bugi.” Survivance: Narratives
of Native Presence. Ed. Gerald Vizenor. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. 2008. 163-89.
“Re-storying the West: Race, Gender, and Genre in Nightland.” Louis Owens: Tribute to a Native Writer.
Ed. Jacquelyn Kilpatrick. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2004. 119-38.
“Mixedbloods: Stereotypes and Inversion in The Yogi of Cockroach Court.” Rekindling the Inner Light: The
Frank Waters Centennial. Ed. Barbara Waters. Taos: The Frank Waters Foundation, 2003. 152-62.
"Sycorax Video Style: Kamau Brathwaite's Middle Passages." African Images: Recent Studies in Text and
Cinema. Trenton: Africa World Press, 2000. 139-152.
"Gerald Vizenor's Griever: An American Monkey King in China: A Cross-Cultural Re-Membering."
Loosening the Seams: Interpretations of Gerald Vizenor. Ed. A. Robert Lee. Bowling Green: Popular
Press, 2000. 136-54.
Under Consideration/Forthcoming
“Vizenor’s Life Studies: Re-Visioning Survivance in Almost Ashore.” Gerald Vizenor: Poetry and Poetics. Ed. Deborah
Madsen. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. Expected 2011.
“Thriller Survivance: Louis Owens’s Subversive Resistance.” Native American Renaissance: Literary Imagination and
Achievement. Ed. A. Robert Lee and Alan R. Velie. Norman: U of Oklahoma P. Expected 2012.
“Kabuki and Dynamic Remembrance in Hiroshima Bugi: Atomu 57.” Vizenor in the World: Anishinaabe Transnational.
Ed. James MacKay.
Encyclopedia Articles
“The Light People.” Encyclopedia of American Indian Literatures. New York: Facts on File, 2007.
“Dark River.” Encyclopedia of American Indian Literatures. New York: Facts on File, 2007.
“Kimberly Blaeser.” Encyclopedia of Multiethnic American Literature. New York: Greenwood Press, 2005.
“Gordon Henry, Jr.” Encyclopedia of Multiethnic American Literature. New York: Greenwood Press, 2005.
“Carter Revard.” Encyclopedia of Multiethnic American Literature. New York: Greenwood Press, 2005.
“Ray A. Young Bear.” Encyclopedia of Multiethnic American Literature. New York: Greenwood Press, 2005.
Public Humanities
“Within Living Memory: Gerald Vizenor’s Hiroshima Bugi and Japanese-American Cultural Exchange after World War
II.” Bismarck: North Dakota Humanities Council, 2007. Unpaginated tabloid.
Book Reviews
Studies in the Literary Achievement of Louise Erdrich, Native American Writer: Fifteen Critical Essays. Ed. Brajesh
Sawhney. Lewiston, New York: Edwin Mellon, 2008. Studies in American Indian Literatures. Forthcoming.
Plural Sovereignties and Contemporary Indigenous Literature by Stuart Christie (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009).
Western American Literature 45.1 (Spring 2010): 86-88.
Native Storiers. Ed. Gerald Vizenor (Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 2009). Southwestern American Literature 35.1
(Fall 2009): 84-85. Pub. 2010.
Father Meme by Gerald Vizenor (Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 2008). Southwestern American Literature 35.1 (Fall 2009):
83-84. Pub. 2010.
I Swallow Turquoise for Courage by Hershman R. John (Tucson: U of Arizona P, 2007). Southwestern American
Literature 33.2 (Spring 2008).
Not Just Any Land: A Personal and Literary Journey in the American Grasslands by John Price. (Lincoln: U of
Nebraska P, 2004). North Dakota Historical Review 74.1/2 (Spring/Fall 2007): (July 2008).
Geronimo after Kas-ki-yeh: Poems by Rawdon Tomlinson. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State U P, 2007). Southwestern
American Literature 33.1 (Fall 2007): 97-98.
Individuality Incorporated: Indians and the Multicultural Modern by Joel Pfister. (Durham: Duke U P, 2004).
Western American Literature 41.3 (Fall 2006): 362-63.
Beautiful Chaos: Chaos Theory and Metachaotics in Recent American Fiction by Gordon Slethaug (Albany:
State U of New York P, 2000). Rocky Mountain Review 56.1 (Spring 2002): 114-16.
Winning the Dust Bowl by Carter Revard (Tucson: U of Arizona P, 2000). Crab Orchard Review 7.1 (Fall
2001): 227-28.
Dark River by Louis Owens (Norman: U of Oklahoma P, 1999). American Indian Culture and Research
Journal 24.3: 184-86.
Family Matters, Tribal Affairs by Carter Revard (Tucson: U of Arizona P, 1998). Studies in American Indian
Literatures 11.4 (Winter 1999): 78-80.
American Indian Literature and the Southwest by Eric Gary Anderson (Austin: U of Texas P, 1999). Western
American Literature 35.1 (Spring 2000): 468-69.
Artistry in Native American Myths by Karl Kroeber (Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 1998). Rocky Mountain Review
53.2 (Fall 1999): 112-15.
Native American Verbal Art: Texts and Contexts by William M. Clements (Tucson: U of Arizona P, 1996).
Great Plains Review 18.3 (Summer 1998): 270-71.
LARRY W. REMELE MEMORIAL FELLOWSHIP/NORTH DAKOTA HUMANITIES COUNCIL LECTURES
Keynote address: Upper Midwest Honors Council Conference, Dickinson State University, Dickinson, 2007.
North Dakota Heritage Center, Bismarck, 2007.
North Dakota State University, Fargo, 2007.
SCHOLARLY PAPERS AND PRESENTATIONS
“Back to Ground Zero: Performing the Fiction of Race in Gerald Vizenor’s Hiroshima Bugi: Atomu 57 and Griever: An
American Monkey King in China.” Modern Language Association/Seattle, 2012. (Joint session of the Divisions of Asian American Literature and Native American Literature.)
“‘Not the Same Elk’: The Return of Native Agency in Stephen Graham Jones’ Ledfeather.” Western Literature
Association/Missoula, 2011.
“Gerald Vizenor’s Hiroshima Bugi: Rashomon, Kabuki, and Dynamic Remembrance.” MELUS, The Society for the Study
of Multiethnic Literatures of the United States/Boca Raton, 2011.
“Louis Owens and the Comedy of Survivance.” MELUS, American Literature Association/San Francisco, 2010. Cancelled due to family emergency.
“Humor and Native Identity in the Novels of Louis Owens.” Western Literature Association/Prescott, AZ, 2010.
“Telling the Understory: Gathering Moss with Robin Wall Kimmerer.” Modern Language Association/Philadelphia, 2009.
“Museum Survivance: Vizenor Ten Years After NAGPRA.” Western American Literature Association/Spearfish, 2009.
“Teaching Robin Wall Kimmerer in a Literature and the Environment Context.” Native American Literature Symposium/
Albuquerque, 2009.
“Race, Gender, and Collaborative Knowledge: Frank Waters and Los Alamos.” Western American Literature Association/
Boulder, 2008.
“Ortiz and Vizenor: Two Theories of Survivance” American Literature Association/San Francisco, 2008.
“Fossil Love, Carbon Footprint: Gary Snyder in the Post Natural Moment.” Western Literature Association/Tacoma, 2007.
“Copperhead Country.” Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment/Spartanburg, SC, 2007.
“Becoming a Citizen of the World: Gerald Vizenor and the Age of Globalization.” Modern Language
Association/Philadelphia, 2006.
“Written on the Skin: Ableism and the Native Subject.” Western Literature Association/Boise, 2006.
“Beyond Aesthetic Victimry: Disability and Race in Yellow Robe’s Grandchildren of the Buffalo Soldiers and Vizenor’s
Hiroshima Bugi: Atomu 57. Native American Literature Symposium/Mt. Pleasant, 2006.
“The Past Is a Foreign Country: Gerald Vizenor’s Hiroshima Bugi: Atomu 57.” Western Literature Association/
Los Angeles, 2005.
“Gary Snyder’s Danger on Peaks.” Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment/Eugene, 2005.
“The Smoking Gun Pipe: Detecting the Mystery in Stephen Graham Jones’ The Bird Is Gone: A Monograph
Manifesto.” Native American Literature Symposium/Mystic Lake, 2005
“My Antonia and the Making of the Great Race.” Western Literature Association/Big Sky, 2004.
“Burying Talk Radio in Gerald Vizenor’s The Heirs of Columbus.” Western Literature Association/Big Sky, 2004.
“Native Literature in the Border Classroom.” Native American Literature Symposium/Mystic Lake, 2004.
“Steal This Book! Dimensions of Textuality in the Novels of Louis Owens.” Western Literature
Association/ Houston, 2003.
“Normalizing Chaos in Gordon Henry’s The Light People.” Native American Literature Symposium/Mystic
Lake, Minnesota, 2003.
“Desire in Two Languages: The Poetry of Luci Tapahonso.” Western Literature Association/Tucson, 2002.
“From Carlisle to ‘New York’: Marianne Moore and the Modern Indian.” Rocky Mountain Modern Language
Association/Scottsdale, 2002.
“Mixedbloods: Stereotypes and Inversion in The Yogi of Cockroach Court.” Frank Waters Centennial
Celebration/Taos, 2002.
“Chaos in Turbulent Flow: Louis Owens’ Dark River.” Native American Literature Symposium/Mystic Lake,
Minnesota, 2002.
“The Essential Environmentalist: Inverting the Rhetoric of Race in the Novels of Louis Owens.” Western
Literature Association/Omaha, 2001.
“Following Basho: Chaos, Wandering, and Place in Gordon Henry’s The Light People.” Association for the
Study of Literature and the Environment/Flagstaff, 2001.
“Chaos: Myth and Science in Bearheart: The Heirship Chronicles.” Western Literature Association/Norman,
2000.
“And the Beat Goes On: Gary Snyder’s Mountains and Rivers without End.” Rocky Mountain Modern
Language Association/Boise, 2000.
“Thriller Survivance: Louis Owens's Genre Fiction.” Modern Language Association/Chicago, 1999.
“Sparking the Sunwise Circuit: Gordon Henry’s The Light People.” Modern Language Association/Chicago,
1999.
“Dark River, Gold Mountain, and the Ghost of Locke.” Western Literature Association/Sacramento, 1999.
“The Woodcraft Indian and the Power of Medicine.” Hemingway Centennial Literary Conference/Oak Park,
Illinois,1999.
"The Fragmented Forest." Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment/Kalamazoo, 1999.
"Is Nothing Sacred in Nightland? Or, Coyote Waits for Tony Hillerman." Western Literature Association/Banff,
Alberta, Canada, 1998.
"Trickster Reversals/Mongrel Intertexts: Gerald Vizenor's Griever: An American Monkey King in China."
Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association/Salt Lake City, 1998.
"Stories within Stories: The Man Who Killed the Deer." Frank Waters Society/Salt Lake City, 1998.
"Tribal Children and the Law of the Father in Gerald Vizenor's 'Bad Breath.'" Twentieth Century Literature
Conference/Louisville, 1998.
"'Is It Not a Kind of Incest?': Brothers and Sisters in Hamlet and Measure for Measure." Shakespeare
Association of America, 1998.
"Stories within Stories: The Man Who Killed the Deer." Western Literature Association/Albuquerque, 1997.
"Gary Paul Nabhan: The Ethnobotanist as Storyteller." Association for the Study of Literature and the
Environment/Missoula, 1997.
"Louis Owens's Nightland and the Mythic West." Native American Literature Conference/Eugene, 1997.
"Sycorax Video Style: Kamau Brathwaite's Middle Passages." African Literature Association/East Lansing,
Michigan, 1997.
"Debt and Forgiveness: Money and Values in Love's Labor's Lost." Shakespeare Association of America, 1997.
"Seeing with the Mind's Eye, or What Does Polonius Have to Do with Poland?" Sixteenth Century Studies/St.
Louis, 1996.
"Griever's Buddhist Heart." Western Literature Association/Vancouver, 1995.
Session Organizer and Chair
“Bodies and Borders in the Atomic West.” Modern Language Association/San Francisco, 2008.
“Atomic West.” Western Literature Association/Boulder, 2008.
“Atomic Ranch, Atomic Rez.” American Literature Association/San Francisco, 2008. (Western Literature Association.)
“Gerald Vizenor: History, Sovereignty, Survivance.” Western Literature Association/Los Angeles, 2005.
“Native Literature in the Border Classroom.” Native American Literature Symposium/Mystic Lake, 2004.
American Literature Since 1900. Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association/Scottsdale, 2002.
Native American Literature. Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association/Boise, 2000.
"Other Destinies: The Novels of Louis Owens." Native American Literature Conference/Eugene, 1997.
Session Organizer
“Radio WEST.” Western American Literature Association/Big Sky, 2004.
Session Chair
“Native Identity,” Western Literature Association Conference, Prescott, AZ, 2010.
“Northwest Writers.: Snyder, Kesey, and H. L. Davis.” Western Literature Association/Tacoma, 2007.
“Sacajawea’s Story.” Western Literature Association/Boise, 2006.
“Decentering Traditional Notions of the American West: Language, Culture, Geography, Politics.” Western
Literature Association/Houston, 2003.
“Ethnicity and Language.” Linguistic Association of the Southwest/Edinburg, Texas, 2003.
“Creative Oases: Poets of the Native West.” Western Literature Association/Tucson, 2002.
“Stories from the Home Front.” Western Literature Association/Omaha, 2001.
“Mixing Bloods: Mathews, Dunbar-Ortiz, Armstrong and Laurence.” Western Literature Association/Norman,
2000.
"Willa Cather and Parallel Literary Universes." Western Literature Association/Lincoln, 1996.
SELECTED CREATIVE WORKS
Poems
“Speaking of Oaks.” Studies in American Indian Literatures 14.3/4 (Summer/Fall 2002)
“A Different Story.” Studies in American Indian Literatures 14.3/4 (Summer/Fall 2002)
"At Home." Whole Terrain (1998/99): 20.
"you cannot deny." Huracan 4 (1998): 28.
"Learning the Landscape." Huracan 4 (1998): 26-27.
“A Story Off the Ground.” Sou’Wester (Spring 1998): 21-22.
“Sour Cream.” Sou’Wester 26.2 (Spring 1998): 23.
"Metamorphosis." The MacGuffin (Fall 1997).
"Time and Again." Primavera. (1996).
"No Doubt." Sou'Wester 25.1 (Fall 1996): 7-8.
"New Ways." Sou'Wester 25.1 (Fall 1996): 9-10.
"Pancakes at Eight." Hamline Journal (1996): 1.
"Impenetrable as a Conch." Confluence 45.7 (1996): 45.
"Family History." Confluence 45.7 (1996): 46-47.
"The Gift of Color." rhino (1996): 12.
"Trick or Treat." Borderlands/Texas Poetry Review 7 (Fall/Winter 1995): 17.
"In Memory." Hurakan 2 (1995): 102.
"Matrilineal." Borderlands/Texas Poetry Review 5 (Fall/Winter 1994): 25.