Rebecca Umland

Professor

Office: THMH 203B   |    Phone: (308) 865-8697   |    Email: umlandr@unk.edu

Rebecca Umland

Education

  • Ph.D. English, University of Iowa

Professional Organizations

  • Mythopoeic Society
  • Popular Culture Association
  • The International Arthurian Society
  • The Tristan Society

Courses Taught

  • ENG 467/869 Romantic Literature
  • ENG 468/880 Victorian Literature 
  • ENG 872 English Literature to 1500 
  • ENG 330 European Literature In Translation: Saints and Sinners 
  • ENG 337 Popular Literature: Arthurian Legends, Then and Now
  • ENG 252 Western Civilization: Love in the Western World

Teaching and Research Interests:

  • 19th-Century British Literature
  • World Literature (European Studies)
  • The Arthurian Legend/ Quester Hero
  • Film Studies

Awards

  • Martin Distinguished Professor of English
  • Faculty Research Mentor Award
  • Outstanding Teaching Award, Mortar Board Society
  • Pratt-Heins Distinguished Research Award
  • Honorary Member for Teaching Excellence, Phi Eta Sigma

Publications

Books:

  • Outlaw Heroes as Liminal Figures of Film and Television, McFarland & Company Publishers, Inc., Spring 2016, 285 pp.
  • Donald Cammell: A Life on the Wild Side, Godalming, Surrey: FAB Press, 2006. 304 pp. Co-author, with Samuel J. Umland.
  • The Use of Arthurian Legend in Hollywood Film: From Connecticut Yankees to Fisher Kings, Greenwood Press, 1996, 218 pp. Co-Author, with Samuel J. Umland.
  • Selected Papers on Medievalism, Indiana University of Pennsylvania Press, 1988, 183 pp. Edited, with Introduction and contributing essay. Co-Editor, with Janet Goebel.

Book Chapters and Periodicals:

  • Presumed Dead: The Impact of Tennyson’s Enoch Arden on the Cinema.” Society for the Interdisciplinary Study of Social Imagery: Proceedings—2018 Conference, Ed. Thomas Endres, University of Northern Colorado,  https://digscholarship.unco.edu/  August 2020.
  • “Dante and His Epigones: Breaking the Barrier of Death,” European Studies2019 Conference Proceedings, University of Nebraska Omaha, Ed. Juliette Parnell.https://www.unomaha.edu/college-of-arts-and-sciences/european-studies-conference/esc-proceedings/index.php, Summer 2020.
  • “Swept Away . . . By an Unusual Destiny in the Blue Sea of August: Castaways in Love.” Society for the Interdisciplinary Study of Social Imagery: Proceedings—2018 Conference, University of Northern Colorado, https://digscholarship.unco.edu/sassi/3/ 2019.
  • “The Face of Robin Williams and the Enigma of Stardom,” in Robin Williams: Essays on the Films, Ed. Johnson Cheu, McFarland Publishers. Co-authored with Samuel J. Umland. Invited contributors. 2019.
  • "Lillie Langtry: From Professional Beauty to International Icon," in Essays on the Female Artist in the Early Twentieth Century, Ed. Paul Fryer, McFarland, 2012.
  • “The Liminal Space of the Road and the Transformative Quest,” Society for the Interdisciplinary Study of Social Imagery: Proceedings—2012 Conference, Ed. Will Wright and Steven Kaplan. Pueblo:  Colorado State UP 259-264. 2012.
  • "Burn, Witch, Burn: A First Look at the Scandinavian Horror Film," in Horror International. Wayne State UP. Co-Author, with Samuel J. Umland, 2005.
  • “Alvin Straight: Ordinary Hero (1921-1996),” Wrapped in Plastic 72 (December 2004) 13-17. With Samuel J. Umland.
  • “The Straight Story on The Straight Story,” Wrapped in Plastic 62 (January 2003) 8-16.
  • “Child Victims and Excessive Signifiers: Lars von Trier’s Forbrydelsens Element, Kinoeve: A fortnightly journal of film in the new Europe 2:5 (4 March 2002). On-line. With Samuel J. Umland.        
  • “All For Love: The Myth of Romantic Passion in Japanese Cinema,” Mythlore 89 (23:3) Summer 2001: 43-55. With Samuel J. Umland.
  • Unrequited Love in We Can Build You," in Philip K. Dick: Contemporary Critical Interpretations, Greenwood Press, 1995.
  • “The Snake in the Woodpile: Tennyson's Vivien as Victorian Prostitute,” in Culture and the King: The Social Implications of the Arthurian Legend, Eds. Martin B. Shichtman and James P. Carley, SUNY Press, 1994: 274–287.
  • “Tennyson's Hierarchy of Women in Idylls of the King,” in History and Community: Essays in Victorian Medievalism, Ed. Florence S. Boos, Garland Publishing, 1992: 81–107.
  • “William Morris: Arthurian Innovator,” The Arthurian Revival: Essays on Form, Tradition, and Transformation, Ed. Debra N. Mancoff, Garland Publishing, 1992: 75–96.
  • “An Assessment of Swinburne's Arthuriana,” in King Arthur Through the Ages, 2 vols., Eds. Valerie M. Lagorio and Mildred Leake Day, Garland Publishing, 1990, Vol. 2: 62–82.
  • “Character as Fate in Edwin Arlington Robinson's Tristram,” in Selected Papers on Medievalism, Indiana University of Pennsylvania Press, 1988: 58–68.

Conference Presentations

  • “’Strange Faces, Other Minds’: Tennyson’s Idylls of the King and the Alien Other,” presented at the Mythcon 52 Conference (The Mythopoeic Society) July 2022.
  • ’Old Tune, so Full of Sadness’—Dante’s Deathless Song in Popular Music” presented in a session, “Across the Universe: Dante Alighieri in Contemporary Culture” at the October 2021 European Studies Conference, University of Nebraska, Omaha, in commemoration of the 700th Anniversary of Dante’s death.
  • Dante and His Epigones: Breaking the Barrier of Death.” European Studies Conference, University of Nebraska, Omaha, October 2019.
  • Swept Away . . . By an Unusual Destiny in the Blue Sea of August: Castaways in Love.” Society for the Interdisciplinary Study of Social Imagery: Proceedings—2018 Conference, University of Northern Colorado, March 2019.
  • “‘Coming Full Circle’: Redemption for John Rambo?” presented at the Society for the Academic Study of Social Imagery Conference (SASSI), University of Northern Colorado, March 2018.
  • “Re-envisioning Marriage in European Cinema after 1970.” presented at the European Studies Conference, University of Nebraska at Omaha, October 2017.
  • “The Problem of Eros in Rohmer’s Love in the Afternoon and Cavani’s The Night Porter,” presented at the European Studies Conference, University of Nebraska at Omaha, October 2014.
  • "The Liminal Space of the Road and the Transformative Quest," Society for the Interdisciplinary Study of Social Imagery (SISSI) Conference, Colorado Springs, CO, March 2012.
  • "'That's not all, Folks': The Reinvention of Arthurian Legend," Panel Presentation: Arthur's Afterlife and the Dialectics of Adaptation, PCA/ACA Conference, St. Louis, MO, April 2010.
  • "Runescape, or Athena Meets the Lady of the Lake: Arthurian Legend in the Electronic Age," PCA/ACA Conference, New Orleans, LA, April 2009.