Dr. Heather Neilson

Biography

Heather Neilson is a Senior Lecturer at UNSW Canberra in the School of Humanities & Social Sciences. She taught in the English Media Studies program starting in 1995 and joined the History program in 2023. Her academic background includes a Bachelor of Arts with Honours (First Class) from the University of Melbourne and a Doctorate of Philosophy from the University of Oxford. Neilson has previously held positions at the University of Sydney and the University of Western Australia between 1998 and 2002. She served as the president of the Australian New Zealand American Studies Association from July 2002 to July 2005 and as the Australasian representative on the International Committee of the American Studies Association (US-based). Neilson has extensive experience in literary reviews and has been editor for the Australasian Journal of American Studies from 1996 to 2004, as well as co-editor from 2008 to 2015 and resumed her role as Literary Reviews editor from 2015 to 2022. Her research interests predominantly focus on American studies, especially the fictional cinematic representations of historical and political events, and she also explores intertextuality and adaptations of popular culture classics. Neilson continues her research on American writer Gore Vidal and is currently working on a monograph titled "Political Animal: Gore Vidal and Power," published in 2014. She also investigates the prolific writings of Jay Parini.

Research Interests