Bio:

Professor Leslie Donovan grew up in Albuquerque, NM, and completed UNM’s Honors Program when she was an undergraduate. She teaches wide-ranging interdisciplinary humanities and communications courses for the Honors College that feature student-centered activities (drawing in chalk on the patio), creative assignments (writing stories or making films), experiential learning (local field trips), and multicultural voices (textbooks and guest speakers). She has been recognized with several teaching awards, including UNM’s Presidential Teaching Fellowship. Her recent courses include Legacy of Peace, Mythmaking and Tolkien, Legacy of Monsters and Marvels Through the Ages, What Worlds May Come: Studies for the Future, and Happiness for Honors Students.

A Professor in the Honors College and Affiliated Faculty in UNM’s Institute for Medieval Studies, Feminist Research Institute, and English Department, Dr. Donovan earned degrees in Medieval Literature and Creative Writing Poetry from the University of Washington (PhD) and UNM (MA and BA), as well as a Diploma with Distinction in Early Irish Language and Literature from University College, Dublin (Ireland) and a Certificate in Modern Icelandic from the University of Iceland. Professor Donovan’s publications and presentations include studies of J.R.R. Tolkien, Beowulf, saints' lives, Old Norse mythology, Old English literature, pedagogy, disability studies, and women and gender studies.  Her most well-recognized works are Approaches to Teaching Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings and Other Works and Perilous and Fair: Women and the Works of J.R.R. Tolkien.

Research Interest:

Tolkien studies; creativity; future studies; peace studies; medieval literature and culture (Old Norse, Old English, Early Irish); classical literature; fantasy and science fiction literature; technology; women studies, gender and transgender studies; disability studies; pedagogy and teaching.