PROFESSIONAL

Hellen Lee-Keller, Assistant Professor of Multi-Ethnic Literatures, joined the English Department at California State Unviersity, Sacramento in 2006. She teaches undergraduate and graduate courses that emphasize the intersections between race, ethnicity, sexuality, gender, and class formations in cultural production in the United States.

Professor Lee-Keller earned a B.A. in Art at UC Santa Cruz, a second B.A. cum laude in French from UC Irvine, and an M.A. in Humanities from CSU Dominguez Hills. In 2006, she earned her Ph.D. in Literature at UC San Diego, under the direction of Shelley Streeby, author of American Sensations: Class, Empire, and the Production of Popular Culture (2002). Her mentors include George Lipsitz and Winifred Woodhull. She has also studied with Rosemary George, Judith Halberstam, Gloria Hull, Sara Johnson, Nicole King, Lisa Lowe, Kristen Ross, Rosaura Sánchez, Nayan Shah, and Lisa Yoneyama.

After defending my dissertation, La Jolla, June 2006
Front row: Dr. Gabriela Nuñez, Dr. Clarissa Clo,
Dr. Hellen Lee-Keller, Proud Parent Sarah Lee, Nicole Trombley, LMT.
Back row: Dr. Jake Mattox, Proud Parent James Lee, Dr. Phil Roeder, Dr. Derek Lee-Keller

Her peer-reviewed publications include "Civilizing Violence: 'The Haunted Valley,'" which examines Ambrose Bierce's represenation of the race, gender, civilization, and sexual anxieties on the frontier, and "'Scholarship automatically reminds me of grant money': Reconsidering and Revaluing Undergraduate Students and Scholarship,”an article on undergraduate scholarship. She has been invited to write entries on Ambrose Bierce, Edwidge Danticat, Alice Dunbar-Nelson, Ronyoung Kim, Paule Marshall, and Milton Murayama for Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Literature, Women in American History: An Encyclopedia, and PAL: Perspectives in American Literature, as well as book reviews for the Southern California Quarterly. She has presented her research at several professional conferences including the Modern Language Association, American Studies Association, Association for Asian American Studies, African Literatures Association, and Pacific Southwest Women's Studies Association. 

In addition to her teaching and research, she regularly engages in academic and community programs dedicated to social justice. She seeks opportunities where she can advocate for women, minority, working-class, and LGBT students. She has been invited to speak on issues of race, culture, and history at the 40 Acres Art Gallery in the Oak Park community of Sacramento. In 2004, she launched an arts enrichment program for minority and low-income children at a charter school in the downtown San Diego area. Moreover, she has been invited on several occasions to speak about her experiences as a non-traditional student at the California Forum for Diversity in Graduate Education. In 2007, she was elected as Treasurer for the California State University, Sacramento chapter of the California Faculty Association. She currently sits on the Ways and Means Committee for the Stanford Settlement Neighborhood Center, the Advisory Board for Vox Musica, and Collections, Archives, and Research Committee for the Junior League of Sacramento.

Talking to a client during the 1980s.

Prior to and during her academic pursuits, Professor Lee-Keller has been an award-winning graphic designer as well as a collections cataloger at the Getty Research Institute. As a designer, she has worked on projects varying from movie posters, video box covers, hotel press kits, editorial layouts, and fashion advertising. In 1998, she pursued more academically-oriented work as a Senior Special Collections Cataloging Assistant at the Getty Research Institute located at the Getty Center in Brentwood, California. She researched, processed, cataloged, and wrote the Finding Aid for the Daniel Libeskind Papers as well as working on the papers of Andre Breton and Eugene Delacroix before she entered the doctoral program in Literature at UC San Diego.

PERSONAL

In Cape Town, South Africa

I was born in Seoul, South Korea, and immigrated to the United States, via South Africa and Paraguay, when I was two years old.

I have one younger sister, who has started a knitting business, Hip Chicks Knit. My parents--after decades of janitorial work, tile work, and factory work--now own and operate a hot dog stand in LA's Koreatown.

At the Los Angeles Zoo.

Except for the six years I lived in Santa Cruz for undergraduate and graduate school, I have lived most of my life in Southern California. I attended Daniel Freeman Elementary School in Inglewood, Fairfax Elementary School in Los Angeles, Lennox Middle School in unincorporated Los Angeles, and West High School in Torrance.

La Place Stan in the heart of the Lorraine

I lived one year in Nancy, France, where I learned to speak French and enjoy wine. Interesting frivolous fact: I never left my apartment during the whole month of February, except for four days. Too cold! Brrrr!

I spent 7 very long years in La Jolla, California doing time, oops, I mean in graduate school. People talk about the beaches, the weather, the Zoo, and other things to do in San Diego, but mostly I saw the inside of the library and my apartment--studying, studying, studying. The highlights were making a handful of wonderful friends and meeting my spouse.

I like to relax in my spare time singing. If I can't get my guitar-playing spouse to accompany me, I will sing along with karaoke machines in private. I sing in public with the St. Paul's Episcopal Church Chancel Choir.

In Mammoth, 2006

My hobbies include riding dressage, needlework, gardening, cross-country skiing, sailing, hunting, and fishing. I also set aside some of my very limited free time volunteering with various outreach and educational organizations.

Emmeline and Georgino at 10 weeks old

I currently live in Sacramento with my spouse Derek Keller, a composer, guitarist, and music professor, and our cats, Emmeline and Georgino.

Now, you know way too much about me--drop by and tell me something about yourself!