Heather Ostman
Contact Information
Phone: 914-606-6837
Office location: Sci/302
Email: heather.ostman@sunywcc.edu
Title(s): Professor of English; Humanities Institute Director; Humanities Curriculum Chair
Department/Division: English/Arts, Humanities, & Social Sciences
Degree Information* (Degree, Concentration, and Institution):
- Ph.D. English, Fordham University
- M.A. English, CUNY Lehman College
- B.A. Literature, SUNY Purchase College
Courses Taught*:
- Writing and Research
- Writing and Literature
- Creative Writing
- Life Writing
- American Literature since 1865
Selected Honors and Awards:
- Westchester Community College Foundation Award for Excellence in Service, 2023.
- National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Stipend Grant (2021)
- National Endowment for the Humanities, Challenge Grant for the Two-Year College (2012)
- SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Scholarship and Creative Activities (2012)
- WCC Women’s History Month Honoree (2018)
Publications and Presentations*:
Books
- Ostman, Heather. Kate Chopin’s New Orleans. Palgrave Macmillan, 2024.
- Ostman, Heather, ed. The New View from Cane River: Critical Essays on Kate Chopin’s At Fault. Louisiana State UP, 2022.
- Ostman, Heather. American Women Activists and Autobiography: Rhetorical Lives. Routledge, 2021.
- Ostman, Heather, Howard Tinberg, and Danizete Martínez, eds. Teaching Writing through the Immigrant Story. Utah State UP, 2021.
- Ostman, Heather. The Second Chance Home for Girls. Open Hand Press, 2021. (Novel)
- Ostman, Heather. Kate Chopin and Catholicism. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020.
- Ostman, Heather. The Fiction of Junot Díaz: Reframing the Lens. Rowman & Littlefield, 2017.
- Ostman, Heather, and Kate O’Donoghue, eds. Kate Chopin in Context: New Approaches. Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.
- Ostman, Heather. Writing Program Administration and the Community College. Parlor Press, 2013.
- Ostman, Heather, ed. Kate Chopin in the Twenty-First Century: New Critical Essays. Editor. Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2008.
- Ostman, Heather, ed., Global Perspectives on Kate Chopin. Lexington Books, under contract.
- Ostman, Heather. Nineteenth-Century American Literature, Religion, and the Search for Grace. Routledge, under contract.
Selected Articles and Contributions to Volumes
- “Divorce and the New Woman: Precedents to Modernism in At Fault.” The New View from Cane River: Critical Essays on Kate Chopin’s At Fault. Ed. Heather Ostman. Louisiana State UP, 2022. 156-174.
- “Reflective Practice, Immigrant Narrative, and the Humanities Institute.” Teaching Writing through the Immigrant Story. Eds. Heather Ostman, Howard Tinberg, and Danizete Martínez. Utah State UP, 2021. 157-169.
- “Reading Kate Chopin in the Twenty-First Century.” Rpt. in The Awakening. Ed. Margo Culley. 3rd ed. New York: W.W. Norton, 2017. 323-328.
- “Reflecting Practices: Competing Models of Reflection in the Rhetoric of Prior Learning Assessment.” Co-written with Cathy Leaker. A Rhetoric of Reflection. Ed. Kathleen Blake Yancey, Logan: Utah State UP, 2016. 84-102.
- “The Moral Imagination and Sergeant James Hathaway in Inspector Lewis.” Supernatural Studies 3.1 (Spring 2016): 42-55.
- “Maternity vs. Autonomy in Chopin’s ‘Regret.’” Kate Chopin in Context: New Approaches. Ostman and O’Donoghue, 2015.
- “Self-Narrative as Performative Act: Student Autobiographers and the Postmodern Self.” New Writing: The International Journal for the Theory and Practice of Creative Writing 10.3 (2013): 336-344.
- “Composing Knowledge: Writing, Rhetoric, and Reflection of Prior Learning Assessment.” Co-written with Cathy Leaker. College Composition and Communication 61.4 (2010): 691-717.
Selected Short Fiction
- “Big Red.” The Quint: an Interdisciplinary Journal from the North 8.4 (Sept. 2016): 214-228.
- “The Return.” Balanced Rock (Winter 2014): 70-77.
- “Coney Island.” Balanced Rock (Spring 2013): 13-21.
- “How Safe We Are.” New Writing: The International Journal for the Theory and Practice of Creative Writing 5.3 (2008): 201-210.
- “Anywhere But Here.” New Texas: A Journal of Literature and Culture (2007): 75-88.
Selected Reviews
- Rev. of A History of African American Autobiography. Life Writing (2023), https://doi.org/10.1080/14484528.2023.2244805.
- Rev. of Feminist Rhetorical Practices. Composition Studies 40.2 (2012): 166-8.
- Rev. of From the Personal to the Political: Toward a New Theory of Maternal Narrative. Women’s Studies 39.8 (2010): 909-911.
- Rev. of Approaches to Teaching Chopin’s The Awakening. Teaching American Literature: a Journal of Theory and Practice, 2016.
- Rev. of Christianity and the Detective Story. Journal of Religion and Philosophy 26.3 (2014): 369-370.
Institution Service or Academic Service:
Selected Service to WCC
- Humanities Institute Director, 2014-present (co-Director 2012-2014).
- Humanities Curriculum Chair, 2021-present
- Presiding Officer, Faculty Senate, 2015-2019.
- Acting English Department Chair, 2014.
- Assistant English Department Chair, 2008-2013
Selected Professional Service
- Kate Chopin International Society (www.katechopin.org): Co-founder and President (2004-).
- Modern Language Association (MLA): Committee on Academic Freedom and Professional Rights and Responsibilities (2023-present); Committee on Community Colleges (appointed position, 2015-2018);
- Selection Committee for MLA Humanities Innovation Grant (2021).
- Society for the Study of American Women Writers: Digital Recovery Hub/NEH Grant Planning Committee (2019-).
- Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC): Outstanding Book Award Committee (2014).
- Council of Writing Program Administrators (CWPA): Best Book Award Committee (2013).
- Conference for Basic Writing: Executive Subcommittee for Institutionalization/Activism (2012).
Editorial Appointments
- Fiction Editor (2017-); Associate Editor and Advisory Board Member, The Watchung Review, journal of the New Jersey College English Association (2015-present).
- Editorial Board member, Teaching English at the Two-Year College, journal of TYCA (2016-2019).
- Fiction Editor, Balanced Rock journal (2016-2018).