Heidi Oberholtzer Lee

Academic Writing Specialist

hlee8@eastern.edu

Dr. Heidi Oberholtzer Lee serves as the Writing Specialist for the Ph.D. in Organizational Leadership program at Eastern University, specifically offering writing support to doctoral students during their coursework years. She earned her Ph.D. in English from the University of Notre Dame, where she was a Presidential Fellow and later a Postdoctoral Fellow; her M.A. in English from the Pennsylvania State University, University Park; and her B.A. in English and Spanish from Houghton University, Houghton, New York.  She received a grant to study at the Folger Shakespeare Library and Folger Institute, and she was a Managing Editor for Religion & Literature. For over 25 years, she has taught English and writing classes at the collegiate level, mainly as faculty at Eastern University and Messiah University.  She also has experience teaching ESL and high school courses.

Dr. Lee’s primary research interests are food studies, religion and literature, travel writing, and early Anglo- and Ibero-American literatures, and she maintains an active publishing record.

Classes Taught

Graduate:

  • LEAD 700: Academic Inquiry, Writing, and Reflexivity
  • ESL Tutorials

Undergraduate:

  • American Topics Before 1900:  Literature and the Environment
  • American Literature Before 1900
  • Bible as Literature
  • American Novels
  • American Literary Traditions, I
  • Survey of American Literature I
  • Survey of American Literature II
  • Great American Novels:  Art and Public Memory
  • The Inklings
  • Western Civilization III:  Modern Europe
  • Great American Novels
  • Food and Consumption in North American Literatures
  • Literature and the Life of Faith
  • Advanced Writing: Memoir
  • Humane Letters and Writing
  • First Year Seminar:  We Are What We Eat
  • College Writing 
  • Argument and Composition
  • Classical Rhetoric and Composition
  • ESL Practicum
  • Variety of independent studies and honors projects on environmental literature and/or gardens in literature
Research Interests
  • Early American Literatures (Anglo and Ibero)
  • Food Studies
  • Travel Writing
  • Religion and Literature
Selected Publications

Oberholtzer Lee, H. (2025). Quiet activism and faith in contemporary American devotional food literatures and media. In D. Bădulescu, M.-S. Draga Alexandru, & F. Năstase (Eds.), Women’s imaginary cooking and appetites across cultures: Studies in literature, media and film (pp. 298-312). Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

Oberholtzer Lee, H. (2024). Katherine Anne Porter’s “Flowering Judas:” Mexican politics, appetitive language, and alimentary religious symbolism. In J. Birkenstein & R. Hauhart (Eds.), Significant food: Critical readings to nourish American literature (pp. 230-241). University of Georgia Press.

Oberholtzer Lee, H. (2022). Literature to 1800. In D. J. Nordloh (Ed.), American literary scholarship: An annual 2020 (pp. 179-197). Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.1215/00659142-9750650

Oberholtzer Lee, H. (2020). Tasting: A hermeneutic of appetite in early American travel writing. In A. Pettinger & T. Youngs (Eds.), The Routledge research companion to travel writing (pp. 236-248). Routledge.

Oberholtzer-Lee, H. (2013, June 17). Mary Rowlandson. In S. Slawinski (Ed.), The literary encyclopedia. The Literary Dictionary Company. www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=3869

Oberholtzer Lee, H. (2011). Commensality and love feast: The agape meal in the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Brethren in Christ church. In K. Albala & T. Eden (Eds.), Food and faith in Christian culture (pp. 147-169). Columbia University Press.

Oberholtzer Lee, H. (2010). Critical thinking or just critical?: Reintroducing humility to the literature classroom. Christian Scholar’s Review [Special issue], 39(4), 421-37.

Oberholtzer Lee, H. (2005). Turtle tears and captive appetites: The problem of white desire in the Caribbean. In M. Helmers & T. J. Mazzeo (Eds.), Travel and the body [Special issue]. Journal of Narrative Theory, 35, 307-325.

Oberholtzer Lee, H. (2005). “The hungry soul:” Sacramental appetite and the transformation of taste in early American travel writing. Early American Studies, 3(1), 65-93.

Oberholtzer, H. (Ed. & Intro.). (2003). Pilgrimage in literature of the Americas: Spiritualized travel and sacred place [Special issue]. Religion & Literature, 35(2-3). 

Oberholtzer, H. (2001). Two unpublished letters of James Fenimore Cooper. English Language Notes, 38(3), 77-84.

Selected Presentations

Oberholtzer Lee, H. (2017, March 30). Teaching eighteenth-century drama: A “reader’s theatre” assignment [Paper presentation]. 48th Annual conference of the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Minneapolis, MN, United States.

Oberholtzer Lee, H. (2015, November 7). Working women, child care, and elder care in early America: Sarah Savage’s The factory girl and perpetually hybrid roles [Paper presentation]. Triennial Conference of the Society for the Study of American Women Writers, Philadelphia, PA, United States.

Oberholtzer Lee, H. (2015, March 20). Dental disability: Civilized emasculation or savage manliness [Paper presentation]. Disability Studies Caucus at the 46th Annual conference of the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Los Angeles, CA, United States.

Oberholtzer Lee, H. (2011, March 3). Early American literature for creative writing students: An assignment using the OED and Early American Imprints [Paper presentation]. Biennial conference of the Society of Early Americanists, Philadelphia, PA, United States.

Oberholtzer Lee, H. (2010, June 4). Vocabularies of the environment: Conserving and preserving in early American literature [Paper presentation]. Annual conference of the Association for the Study of Food and Society, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, United States.

Oberholtzer Lee, H. (2009, March 5). ‘Lynx, and mud fish, and bears, oh my!:’ Masculine appetite and the rhetoric of violence in William Bartram's Travels [Paper presentation]. Biennial conference of the Society of Early Americanists, Hamilton, Bermuda.

Oberholtzer Lee, H. (2008, February 21-23). Approaches to teaching food in literature and film [Paper presentation]. 5th Interdisciplinary and Multicultural Conference on Food Representation in Literature, Film and the Other Arts, The University of Texas at San Antonio, TX, United States.

Oberholtzer Lee, H. (2007, October 13). Critical thinking or just critical?: Reintroducing humility to the literature classroom [Paper presentation]. Reimagining Educational Excellence, Calvin College, Grand Rapids, MI, United States.

Oberholtzer Lee, H. (2006, April 1). A hierarchy of appetites: Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz and Jonathan Edwards [Paper presentation]. 37th Annual conference of the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Montreal, Canada. 

Professional Memberships
  • Society of Early Americanists
  • Modern Language Association