Leslie Werden earned her B.A. in Speech/Communication from The University of Minnesota in Minneapolis before heading into a ten year career in Marketing and Promotions for cable companies in San Jose, CA; Chicago, IL; and Minneapolis, MN. After her husband was transferred to Winona, MN for his job, Leslie decided to stay home and raise children...except she didn't have any. Instead, she did some consulting work for local businesses and worked on her B.A. in English, which she received from Winona State University in 2001. (By the way, during grad school, Leslie did have two children...the second arrived one week after she completed her thesis. Her third child arrived during the Ph.D. program.) Leslie went on to earn her Ph.D. in English from The University of North Dakota where she taught composition, business writing, film, drama, fiction, literary analysis, and directed the UND Film Festival (2004 & 2005) as well as the UND Writers Conference (2006).
Leslie has presented and written papers on Shakespeare, film, composition studies & Virginia Woolf. Her current writing projects include an extension of her dissertation that redefines dramatic tragedy and is working on some children's stories. At Morningside, Leslie is the co-advisor for the Authors' Society writing group and the advisor for the collegiate speech team. She teaches Passport, Composition & Communication, Speech, literature courses, and directs the First Year Writing Program. She was pleased to receive the 2007 award for outstanding first year teaching and advising.
Outside of the academic life, Leslie and her husband Marty (an outside sales person at Fastenal) enjoy pitching baseballs to, fielding slapshots from, and playing hoops with their three boys Walter, Owen, and Eli. If there is extra time, Leslie prefers to spend it reading or watching movies with her faithful lab, Toby, by her side.
Publications
“Memories of Yesterday and Tomorrow: Familial Legacies in Titus and All My Sons,” War, Literature & The Arts: An
International Journal of the Humanities. 18.1-2 (Winter 2007).
Link to article
“The Aesthetics and Politics of the Crowd in American Literature.” Book Review. North Dakota Quarterly. 72.3
(Summer 2005): 182-183. University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, ND.
“Silence as Self-Imposed Isolation: Antonius Block in Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal.” The Image of the
Outsider: Proceedings. Eds. Will Wright and Steven Kaplan. Pueblo, CO: U of Southern Colorado, 2002.
“The Purposes of Tragedy” in preparation.
“Teaching Freshman Composition…and Ourselves with Virginia Woolf,” in preparation.
Presentations
“Memories of Yesterday and Tomorrow: Familial Legacies in Titus and All My Sons.” Presented at the Fourth Annual
UND Scholarly Activities Forum, Grand Forks, ND. 2005.
“Virginia Woolf and First Year Composition.” Presented at the 120th Annual MLA Convention, Philadelphia, PA. 2004.
“The Masking of Queen Elizabeth in Shekhar Kapur’s Elizabeth.” Presented at the Sixth Annual International Red River
Conference on World Literature, Fargo, ND. 2003. Also presented at the Third Annual UND Scholarly Activities Forum,
Grand Forks, ND. 2004.
“Visual Storytelling: Virginia Woolf’s Representations of Memory.” Presented at the Thirteenth Annual Conference on
Virginia Woolf, Smith College, Northampton, MA. 2003.
“Virginia Woolf as Photographic Storyteller.” Presented at the 50th Anniversary of the Midwest Conference on British
Studies, East Lansing, MI. 2004.
“Constructing Gender through Language: Djuna Barnes’ Nightwood.” Presented at the 45th Annual Linguistic Circle of
Manitoba and North Dakota Conference, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. 2002.
“Silence as Self-Imposed Isolation: Antonius Block in Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal. Presented at the 12th Annual
Conference of the Society for Interdisciplinary Study of Social Images, Colorado Springs, CO. 2002. / Also presented at the First Annual UND Scholarly Activities Forum, Grand Forks, ND. 2002
Professional Writing
“Chris Belden.” The High Plains Reader. 11:25 (10 March 2005): 10.
Film Festival Viewer’s Guide. Brochure/Study Guide. UND Writers Conference. 2005.
Film Festival Viewer’s Guide. Brochure/Study Guide. UND Writers Conference. 2004.
Pre-publication reviewer: chapter review of Corrigan & White’s The Film Experience. 2003.
Pre-publication reviewer: manuscript review of Corrigan & White’s The Film Experience. 2001
“Gabrick Believes Scholarships Vital.” Winona Daily News. 30 August 1997.
“A Light in the Dark.” Big River. 5.2 (December 1997): 1-3.
Administration
Director of First Year Studies • Morningside College • Sioux City, IA • 2007-
Coordinate teaching of Passport seminars and Composition & Communication courses. Facilitate faculty
workshops andmeetings.
Director of UND Annual Writers Conference • Grand Forks, ND • 2006
Invite and schedule panel sessions and speakers. Coordinate weekly events including public readings, film festival, writer’s workshops, etc.
Acting Director of WSU Writing Center • Winona, MN • Spring 2000
Worked with tutors to schedule their hours, conduct training sessions, and monitor student feedback.
Collected first year essays for writing contest, coordinated judging of entries, and formatted winning essays for Labyrinth newsletter.
Professional Memberships
Modern Language Association
International Virginia Woolf Society
National Women’s Studies Association
American Association of University Women
Shakespeare Association of America
National Council of Teachers or English
Languages
American Sign Language
Spanish
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