Dr Helena Kadmos

Biography

Helena Kadmos is a lecturer in English Literature on the Fremantle campus with responsibilities for undergraduate and postgraduate teaching. She is the national Discipline Group Lead for English Literature, Theatre Studies and Writing. She coordinates a core first-year course to develop skills and understandings for academic learning in the BA.

Helena's research engages scholarly and creative methodologies. Her creative writing includes fiction, and non-fiction essays on sustainability, memory, and grief. Traditional schoalrship includes topics in Australian literature, the short story cycle, motherhood and the representation of women in narrative fiction. A recent project explored the impacts of employment precarity on learning and teaching in the humanities.

Helena obtained her BA degree from the University of Western Australia, and Masters and PhD degrees in English and Creative Writing from Murdoch University. Before coming to UNDA, Helena was the Academic Coordinator at the McCusker Centre for Citizenship at UWA, supporting students to recognise and apply their knowledge and skills in professional internships and to appreciate their capacities to be active and engaged members of their communities. From 2016 - 2017, Helena was the Krishna Somers Postdoctoral Fellow in Literary Studies at Murdoch University.

Teaching areas

Helena leads and teaches across English Literature in Fremantle, and coordinates several courses nationally. The major includes courses in literary studies, creative and critical writing and professional learning. Helena has invigorated approaches in English Literature at UNDA to learn from Indigenous voices and methodologies, and to appreciate literatures for young people. She is the Fremantle coordinator for Academic Writing, Communication & Research.

Research expertise and supervision

Helena is available to supervise research projects in traditional literary scholarship, and creative writing. Research expertise includes the short story, the short story cycle, Australian literature, life writing, collaborative creative writing, creative research practice, women in narrative, and intergenerational storytelling.

Book chapters

"Writing the image to forgiveness and love." In Contemporary Feminist Theologies: Power, Authority, Love, edited by Kerrie Handasyde, Cathryn McKinney and Rebekah Pryor, Routledge. 2021.
"Marooned." In Looking for the Enemy: The Eternal Internal Gender Wars of our Sisters, edited by Monique Ferrell and Julain Williams, 468-495. Dubuque, Lowa: Kendall Hunt, 2015.

Journal articles and proceedings

Kadmos, Helena and Jessica Taylor. 'No Time to Read? How Precarity is Shaping Learning and Teaching in the Humanities.' Arts and Humanities in Higher Education 0(0). 2023.
Robertson, Rachel and Helena Kadmos. 'Crossing the shadow line: Collaborative creative writing about grief,' New Writing 17 (2): 214-225. 2019.
'Women's relational autonomy and the short story cycle: Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout.' Short Fiction in Theory & Practice 9, no. 1 (April): 39-51. 2019.
'Re-Imagining Indigenous Australia through the Short Story: Heat and Light by Ellen van Neerven.' Australian Literary Studies 33 (3). 2018.
'Given, received, withheld: Purple Threads by Jeanine Leane, the short story cycle and the fragmentary nature of knowing.' Outskirts: Feminisms along the edge 31 (November). 2014.
'“Look what they done to this ground, girl!”: Country and identity in Jeanine Leane's Purple Threads.' Journal of the Association for the Study of Australian Literature 14(3): 1 -11. 2014. 2014.
'The short story cycle and women's stories: Purple Threads by Jeanine Leane.' The truth is out there, edited by Julie Lunn and Stephanie Bizjak, 31-42. Perth: Black Swan Press. 2014.
'Motherhood and the cave: A search for the mother's story.' In Provoking texts: New postgraduate research from the edge: Creative margins, proceedings from the Humanities Graduate Research Conference 2009, Curtin University of Technology. 2010.

Conference papers

2023. 'Our story: Seeking relational autonomy through intergenerational storytelling' - Australasian Association of Writing Programs, November, UC, Canberra.
2022 'What precarity taught us: Embracing connectivism for learning and teaching through uncertainty.’With Jessica Taylor, WA L&T forum, Perth.
2019. `Joining the dots: Writing through grief to forgiveness.' Writing Through − Australasian Association of Writing Programs, November, UT, Sydney.
2019. `Writing the image to forgiveness and love.' Power, Authority, Love - Australian Collaborators in Feminist Theologies and University of Divinity, October, Pilgrim TC, UD, Melbourne.
2018. `Kicking up the dust: Travelling through the Pilbara on a storytelling adventure.' Peripheral Visions - Australasian Association of Writing Programs, November, Curtin University, Perth.
2017. `Plural singularities: Writing collaboratively about change'. Joint paper with R. Robertson. Climates of Change - Australasian Association of Writing Programs, November, Flinders University, Adelaide.
2016. `Re-imagining Indigenous Australia through the short story: Heat and Light by Ellen van Neerven.' Reimagining Australia: Encounter, Recognition, Responsibility - International Australian Studies Association, UNDA, Fremantle.
2016. `It's my story: Memory and personal experience in the short story cycle.' Authorised Theft - Australasian Association of Writing programs, November, UC, Canberra.
2016. `Relational autonomy and the short story cycle: Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout.' Society for the Study of the American Short Story, October, Savannah, Georgia, USA.
2014. `On not being the Man Booker prize winner or the Rhodes Scholar: A personal experience of writing the creative arts PhD thesis.' Murdoch English & Creative Arts Colloquium, Perth.

Original creative works

'Leaning in.’ Westerly Magazine 68, no. 1 (July): 38-46. 2023.
'And a Moth Flew Out.’Island, Australian Nature Writing Collection, (June). 2022.
"Wings." In The incompleteness book 2: Writing back and thinking forward. Edited by Julia Prendergast, Eileen Herbert-Goodall and Jen Webb, 38. Canberra: Recent Work Press, 2021.
`Pockets.' TEXT: Journal of writing and writing courses 25, no. 1 (April): 25-29. 2021.
`Loops.' Meniscus literary journal 8, no. 1 (April): 116-122. 2020.
`Held at Bay.' The in/completeness of human experience, Special Issue Number 58, TEXT: Journal of writing and writing courses 24, no. 1 (April): 65. 2020.
Kadmos, Helena and Rachel Robertson. `A darkness, a shadow.' Meanjin quarterly 77, no. 1 (Autumn): 188-193. 2018.
`Skin.' Indigo: Journal of Western Australian writing, edited by Amanda Lohrey, Lucy Dougan and Chris Pash, 79-86. Floreat, Western Australia: Tactile Books. 2009.
`Moving on.' Westerly 55, no. 2 (November): 80 -93. 2010.
`Little Adonis and the fruit box,' Eureka Street: Arts and Culture, July 11, 2012.
`Photograph.' Meniscus 5, no. 1 June): 99-104. 2017.
`Public relations.' Westerly 62, no. 1 (July): 101-109. 2017.

Professional affiliations

Fellow Higher Education Academy UK
Australasian Association of Writing Programs
The Australian University Heads of English

Awards

2018 Vice Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Learning and Teaching, Murdoch Univesity.
2012 Graduate Women (WA) Joyce Riley Scholarship
2011 Michael A Booth and Joan Eveline Research Bursary

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