University of Nebraska Kearney

Michelle Beissel Heath   

 Department of English

 Office: Thomas Hall 210

 Phone: 308.865.8109

 E-mail: beisselheamp "at" unk.edu 

Dr. Beissel Heath’s teaching and research interests include children’s literature and British literature (particularly 19th century British children's literature).  Her current work in childhood studies explores intersections of literature, history, play, citizenship, and empire.   

Appointments 

Assistant Professor, University of Nebraska at Kearney Department of English (August 2009-present)

Postdoctoral Fellow, Tulane University Department of English (August 2008-July 2009)

Assistant Director, The George Washington University Writing Center (August 2002-July 2003)

Education 

Ph.D., English.  The George Washington University.  Washington, DC.  May 2008.

M.A., English.  The University of Maine.  Orono, ME.  August 2001.

B.A., English, History, & Spanish.  Gustavus Adolphus College.  St. Peter, MN.  May 1999.

Academic Grants and Fellowships 

Everett Helm Visiting Fellowship, Lilly Library, Indiana University, Bloomington (for research at the Lilly Library, 2011-2012).

Research Services Council Summer Scholarly Activity Grant, University of Nebraska at Kearney (for research at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC, 2011)

Center for Teaching Excellence Travel Grant, University of Nebraska at Kearney (for paper presentation at the VISAWUS conference, 2010)

Research Services Council Mini-Grant, University of Nebraska at Kearney (for research at the British Library in London and the Bodleian Library in Oxford, 2009-2010)

Newcomb Institute Faculty Travel Grant, Tulane University (for paper presentation at the NAVSA conference, 2008)

Newcomb Faculty Fellow, Tulane University (2008)

Cosmos Club Foundation Grant, Washington, DC (for research at the Victoria & Albert Museum of Childhood, London, 2007)

Publications 

“Cooks and Queens and Dreams: The South Seas Islands as Fairy Islands of Fancy.”  Oceania and the Victorian Imagination: Where All Things Are Possible.  Ed. Richard D. Fulton and Peter H. Hoffenberg.  Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate, March 2013.  137-149. 

“Not ‘All Ridges and Furrows’ and ‘Uncroquetable Lawns’: Croquet, Female Citizenship, and 1860s Domestic Chronicles.”  Critical Survey.  24.1 (Spring 2012): 43-56. 

“Lessons Not Learned: ‘Bad Cocoa,’ ‘Worse Blankets,’ and the Unhappy Endings of Oscar Wilde’s Fairy Tales.”  oscholars.  Ed. Naomi Wood.  June 2009.

“Playing at House and Playing at Home: the Domestic Discourse of Games in Edwardian Fictions of Childhood.”  Childhood in Edwardian Fiction: Worlds Enough and Time.  Ed. Adrienne E. Gavin and Andrew F. Humphries.  Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, December 2008 (New York: January 2009).  In 2011, Childhood in Edwardian Fiction: Worlds Enough and Time was awarded the inaugural Children's Literature Association Edited Book Award. 

Bibliographic entries for the Research Society for Victorian Periodicals (RSVP) Bibliography: 2005-2007. Victorian Periodicals Review 41.3 (Fall 2008): 183-224.

Selected Conferences 

“'"Art for Art” is their motto’: Aesthetics, Children’s Play, and Late Victorian Children’s Literature.”  North American Victorian Studies Association (NAVSA) annual conference.  Nashville, TN.  November 2011.

“Re-taming the Rebellious Child?: Re-writing the 19^th Century Girl in Timothy Burton’s Alice in Wonderland and Jacqueline Kelly’s The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate.”  International Conference of the Children’s Literature Association (ChLA).  Roanoke, VA.  June 2011.   

“Playing with the Numbers: Child Crowds, Child’s Play, and Mary Augusta Ward’s Milly and Olly.”  North American Victorian Studies Association (NAVSA) annual conference.  Montreal, Canada.  November 2010.  

“Cooks and Queens and Dreams: The South Seas as Fairy Islands of Fancy.”  Victorian Interdisciplinary Studies Association of the Western United States (VISAWUS) annual conference.  Honolulu, HI.  October 2010. 

“Oh, Golly, what a Happy Family!: Politics, Play, and the Extra-Literary Lives of Allan Ahlberg’s, Florence Upton’s, and Enid Blyton’s Children’s Book Series.”  International Conference of the Children’s Literature Association (ChLA).  Ann Arbor, MI.  June 2010.   

“Redeeming ‘the Uncroquetable Lawn’:  Charlotte Yonge, Flirtatious Hoops, and Family Time.”  18^th and 19^th Century British Women Writers Association (BWWA) annual conference.  Iowa City, IA.  April 2009. 

“Sporting Encounters: Liberating Lawn Tennis and a Heterosocial Forster.”  North American Victorian Studies Association (NAVSA) annual conference.  New Haven, CT.  November 2008.

“Making a Good Little Briton: Fiction, Games, and the 19^th Century Commodities of Childhood and Citizenship.”  Kidding Around: The Child in Film and Media interdisciplinary conference.  Washington, DC.  September 2008.

“Empire, Home, and the Child as Artifact: Six to Sixteen and Kim’s Game.”  Midwest Victorian Studies Association (MVSA) Annual Conference. Chicago, IL. April 2008.

“Playing at House and Playing at Home: the Domestic Discourse of Games in Nesbit, Barrie, and Stevenson.”  International Conference of the Children’s Literature Association (ChLA).  Newport News, VA.  June 2007.

“The Uncroquetable Lawn”: Charlotte Yonge and Lewis Carroll Play at Mallets and Hoops.”  Romantic and Victorian Entertainments: Graduate Student Literature Conference.  University of South Carolina.  Columbia, SC.  March 2007.

“Science, Billiards, and the Unplayful Child: Great Expectations, What Maisie Knew, and The Secret Garden.”  Southwest/Texas Popular & American Culture Association Annual Conference.  Albuquerque, NM.  February 2007.

“Domestic Differences: Conceptions of Home in Juliana Ewing’s Six to Sixteen and Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden.”  18^th and 19^th Century British Women Writers Association (BWWA) annual conference.  Athens, GA.  March 2004.