Eleanor Nickel, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of English
McDonald Hall, Room 217
559-453-2296
eleanor.hersey@fresno.edu
Education
Ph.D., English, University of Iowa, 2001
M.A., English with Creative Writing Concentration, West Virginia University, 1997
B.A., English, Gordon College, 1995 - Summa Cum Laude
Share why you teach at FPU
I teach at Fresno Pacific University because I greatly value the diversity of the students who come into my classroom from all over the world. Nothing makes me feel more satisfied than helping students grow both in their faith and in their ability to think critically, as they strive to imitate the "mind of Christ."
Scholarly Interests
While I teach a wide range of courses, including American Literature, Critical Approaches to Literature, Literature and Film, C.S. Lewis, and Creative Writing: Poetry, my scholarly publications are in the field of contemporary American popular culture. I am particularly interested in television, mainstream Hollywood film, and representations of romance and marriage.
Professional and Service Experience
- Selected to participate in the seminar "Slave Narratives" at Yale University, June 2009
- At Fresno Pacific, I am a member of the General Education Committee and serve as a liberal studies mentor. I have also been a freshman mentor in 2003 and 2007. I regularly serve on faculty evaluation and faculty search committees.
Honors and Awards
- Whatley Award, finest article published in Volume 22 of Studies in Popular Culture, for "'It'll Always Be Burma to Me': J. Peterman on Seinfeld," October 2000
- Rebecca Mason Perry Scholarship, outstanding first-year graduate student in English, West Virginia University, 1996
- Gordon-at-Oxford Program, scholarship for year of study at Oxford University, England, Gordon College, 1994-95
Professional Affiliations
Member of the Modern Language Association
Publications and Presentations
- "'Everything Was Contested': Teaching Print and Television Biographies of Willa Cather," in Teaching The Works of Willa Cather, edited by Steven Shively and Virgil Albertini, published by Greentower Press, 2008
- "'The World Hasn't Changed Very Much': Romantic Love in Film and Television Versions of Anne of Green Gables," in L.M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables: A Children's Classic at 100, edited by Holly Blackford, published by Scarecrow Press, 2008
- "Love and Microphones: Romantic Comedy Heroines as Public Speakers," in Journal of Popular Film and Television, 2007
- "A Menace to Human Culture? Teaching Television Films of Willa Cather's Novels," in Teaching Cather, 2005
- "'Tennyson Would Never Approve': Reading and Performance in Kevin Sullivan's Anne of Green Gables," in Canadian Children's Literature, 2002
- "'It's All Mine': The Modern Woman as Writer in Sullivan's Anne of Green Gables Films," in Making Avonlea: L.M. Montgomery and Popular Culture, edited by Irene Gammel, published by University of Toronto Press, 2002
- "'Space Is a Frame We Map Ourselves In': The Feminist Geographies of Susan Howe's Frame Structures," in The Greening of Literary Scholarship: Essays on Literature, Theory, and the Environment, edited by Steven Rosendale, published by University of Iowa Press, 2002
- "The Beginning of the Real Story: C. S. Lewis's Depictions of Heaven," in The Lamp-Post of the Southern California C. S. Lewis Society, 2000
- "'It'll Always Be Burma to Me': J. Peterman on Seinfeld," in Studies in Popular Culture, 2000; and reprinted in Seinfeld, Master of Its Domain: Revisiting Television's Greatest Sitcom, edited by David Lavery with Sara Lewis Dunne, published by Continuum, 2006
- "'I am not a Monster': Homophobia, Nostalgia, and Edith Wharton's The Buccaneers," in Legacy: A Journal of American Women Writers, 1999
- "Word-Healers and Code-Talkers: Native Americans in The X-Files," in Journal of Popular Film and Television, 1998
