date last updated: 7 December 2002
Faculty Biosketch
Leslie Van Gelder
I am
fascinated by the interrelationships between our senses of place, our stories,
and our identities.
Throughout my life I have studied these questions in a variety of contexts. My parents were writers and explorers and from them I gained a rich understanding of the way in which our stories interact with our world. They encouraged the belief in experiential education through travel so I was fortunate enough to be a field assistant on research in Mozambique, Kenya, and throughout the United States.
Later, I applied those same tools to teaching environmental education and collecting folklore Quebec, Newfoundland and Labrador. I have been a traditional high school English teacher, a curriculum consultant for educators, and am the founder of Road Scholars, an experiential travel based educational program for college students. I also conduct archaeological research with Kevin Sharpe in Rouffignac, France.
In all areas, my work explores the intersections between our relationship with Place and the possibilities of coming to understand and apply those relationships through experiential education.
I live in Harrington Park, New Jersey and Oxford, United Kingdom. My academic background includes a Ph.D. in Place Studies from Union Institute and University, an M.A. in Literature with an emphasis on Native American Literature from the College of New Jersey, and a B.A. in English from the University of Michigan where my work focused on the intersection between Darwin's Origin of Species and Nineteenth Century Children's Literature. I write and have a book Weaving a Way Home forthcoming from University of Utah Press. I also am an editor of Green Letters, the journal of the Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment - United Kingdom.