Faculty Profile

Jenny C. Bangsund, Ph.D.

Professor, English

Dr. Jenny Bangsund, Associate Professor of English and Chair of the Humanities Area, has been at USF since 2007.  She has earned degrees from Northwest Nazarene University (1998, English and Philosophy), St. John's College, Santa Fe (2000, Liberal Arts), and Duquesne University (2007, English).  She routinely teaches in the Liberal Arts Core and the University Honors Program, and she also enjoys teaching upper level coursework in English, including Evolving Canons (contemporary literature), Digital Humanities, and Literary Theory and Cultural Criticism.  She is married to Dr. Jonathan Neiderhiser, Director of Instrumental Music, and they have two children.

Education

  • B.A., English and Philosophy, Northwest Nazarene University, 1998
  • M.A., Liberal Arts, St. John's College (Santa Fe), 2000
  • Ph.D., English, Duquesne University, 2007

Courses Taught

  • LAR111 - University Writing and Rhetorics
  • LAR112 - Information Literacy andRhetorical Purpose
  • LAR211 - University Honors Core I
  • ENG200 - Literature and the CriticalImagination
  • ENG341 -
  • ENG345 -
  • ENG366 - Evolving Canons
  • ENG423 - Literary Criticism
  • ENG490 - Special Topics
  • PHI207 - Intro to Philosophy
  • ENG330 - Advanced Grammar
  • LAR211 - University Honors Core I
  • LAR212 - University Honors Core II
  • ENG423 - Literary Criticism
  • ENG425 - Digital Humanities & the Ethicsof Technology
  • ENG294 - Classical Literature & Mythology
  • ENG490 - Special Topics
  • ENG205 - Literature and the Imaginationof Grace
  • ENG224 - American Literature: Survey II

Professional Memberships

College English Association

Expertise

  • Honors and Liberal Arts Education

Research

Flannery O'Connor, Christianity and Literature, Disability Studies, Liberal Arts Education, Honors Education

Scholarships and Creative Work

Book Chapters
  • “On Embodied Theology: Sacraments of the Body in Ordinary Time and A Dynamic God.” Unspeakable: On the Literary Nonfiction of Nancy Mairs. Eds. Merri Lisa Johnson and Susannah Mintz. Palgrave P, 2011.
Lectures
  • “People Just Like Other People”: Cognitive Disability, Theology, and the Church Conversations in Science and Theology, University of Sioux Falls Sioux Falls, S.D., December 2011
  • Headed Home USF Chapel Sioux Falls, SD, April 2021
  • Radical Human Dignity SDV100, University of Sioux Falls Sioux Falls, SD, September 2020
Presentations
  • Startling Absences: The Missing Institution in O’Connor’s Fiction Startling Figures: A Celebration of the Legacy of Flannery O’Connor Milledgeville, Ga., April 2011
  • Illness and Intersection in the Work of Flannery O’Connor Mideast Conference on Christianity and Literature Grove City, Pa., March 2010
  • The Freak of Nature and the Paradox of the Human in O’Connor’s “A Temple of the Holy Ghost” University of Iowa Conference on Religion, Literature and the Arts, Iowa City, Iowa, April 2009
  • He “bled in the Arm Service of his country”: Disability and World War II in the Fiction of Flannery O’Connor Midwest MLA, Minneapolis, Minn., November 2008
  • Life in Ordinary Time: Marriage, Communion and Ecclesiology according to Nancy Mairs Intersections: An Interdisciplinary Conference on Sexuality and Gender, Sioux Falls, S.D., April 2008
  • Making the Modern Body: Medicine, Technology and Embodiment in Flannery O’Connor Louisville Conference on post-1900 Literature and Culture, Louisville, Ky., February 2008
  • Dismodernism, Dependence, and Death: The Poetics of Grief in Hilda Morley’s What Are Winds and What Are Waters Modernist Studies Association, Tulsa, Okla., October 2006
  • Tenderness and Terror: O’Connor, Disability, and Modern Eugenic Gestures Flannery O’Connor in the Age of Terrorism, Grand Rapids, Mich., October 2006
  • Safe at Home: Transgression and Redemption in August Wilson’s Fences Pennsylvania College English Association, Pittsburgh, Pa., March 2006
  • “Someday she would tell him what she knew”: Imagination and Grace in Marilynne Robinson’s Lila College English Association Indianapolis, IN, March 2015
  • Bridging Disciplinary Islands in the Introduction to Literature Classroom College English Association Hilton Head, SC, March 2017
  • Challenging Classroom Conversations, with Elisabeth O’Toole USF Faculty Development Sioux Falls, SD, August 2021
  • Radical Human Dignity and the Problem of Whiteness, with Judy Zimbleman, USF Faculty Development Sioux Falls, SD, February 2021

Service/Volunteer Work

Administrative Leadership

Chair, Humanities Area, 2017-present

Advisor, USF Honors Program, 2017-present

Director, USF Honors Program, 2011-2017

Coordinator, LAR Faculty Collaboration, 2008-present

Director, Writing Center, Duquesne University, 2003-2004

Assistant Director of First-Year Writing, Duquesne University English Department, 2003-2004

Cluster Leader: Literature, Health and Medicine, Duquesne English Department, 2003

Learning Community Leader: Liberal Arts for the Twenty-First Century, Duquesne University,

McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts, 2002

Peer Reviewer

Faculty Reviewer, Reading the World: Ideas that Matter.  Ed. Michael Austin.  3rd ed.  New York:  W.W. Norton.  Fall 2013.

Peer Reviewer, Flannery O’Connor Review, Spring 2014

Peer Reviewer, Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning (JAEPL), Summer 2012

Peer Reviewer, Flannery O’Connor Review, Spring-Summer 2011

Curriculum and Technology Development

COM201 completion, Fall 2015

USF Online Instructor Certificate, 2013

ENG/HIS/PHI425 Development, 2015

LAR111/112 Collaboration Assessment (ongoing)

USF Honors Program Revision, 2011-12

LAR Program Revision, Summer 2015, Summer 2008

USF English Department Curriculum Revision, 2014-15, 2007-08

Conference Participation and Leadership

Racial Healing and Wellness (bimonthly throughout 2021)

Summer Faculty Reading Group, Summer 2021

Faculty Mentor and Panel Participant, “Communities of Special Needs,” USF Undergraduate Research Conference, April 2014

            “The Dwelling Place: Humility, Humanity, and Hilarity, or Lessons in Lucky Hat UNO”

Faculty Mentor, USF Undergraduate Research Conference

Sioux Falls, SD, May 2009, April 2011

Faculty Mentor, Mideast Conference on Christianity and Literature

Grove City, PA, March 2010

Institute Participant, “Reconsidering Flannery O’Connor” NEH Institute

Milledgeville, GA, July 2007

University and Community Service

Teacher Education Committee, 2021-present

Faculty Status Committee, 2019-2021

Committee on Liberal Arts Education, Spring 2019 (Sabbatical Replacement)

Academic Policies Committee, 2015-2018

USF Academic Task Force, Summer 2017

USF Academic Task Force, Summer 2015

USF Academic Task Force, Summer 2014

Steering Committee, Forum for Conversations in Science and Theology, 2012-2017

History Search Committee, 2012-13

Criterion Three Committee, USF Self-Study for Institutional Reaccreditation, 2009-2012

KCSD Radio Board of Directors, 2009-2013

KCSD News Producer Search Committee, Summer 2009; Spring 2012

St. Mark’s Lutheran Church Worship and Music Committee, 2009-2014

USF Honors Committee, 2008-2017

LAR Faculty Collaboration/Coordinator, 2007-08 (member), 2008-present (coordinator)

The Dwelling Place and Leavenworth and Upper Valley Employment Services (LUVES),

Consultant to the Board of Directors (2006-present)