Dr. Kathleen Lipovski Helal

kathleen.helal@austin.utexas.edu

  • Kathleen Lipovski Helal is a scholarly author and public speaker who focuses on how archives in special collections enhance our understanding of literary authors’ lives and writing in particular, and illuminate the creative process in general.

    She has a Ph.D. in English Literature from Indiana University Bloomington, where Susan Gubar directed her dissertation on women’s satire. She specialized in twentieth-century American and British Literature, with a concentration in literary theory. She has published articles on authors such as Virginia Woolf, Dorothy Parker, and Flannery O’Connor in journals from Women’s Studies and The South Central Review to LIT: Literature Interpretation Theory, and The Flannery O’Connor Review.

    Dr. Lipovski Helal has taught at Indiana University, Texas Christian University, Southwestern University, and St. Edward’s University. During her time teaching, she was nominated for Outstanding Teacher of the Year multiple times. After teaching at universities for over twenty years, she now works at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin, where she focuses on writing, presenting, and publishing scholarly work internationally. 

    Most recently, she presented papers at conferences celebrating Flannery O’Connor’s centenary in Milledgeville, Torun, Boston, and London. Her article, “A Mystery Box: Flannery O’Connor in the Archives” has just been published in the 2025 edition of The Flannery O’Connor Review, and she is at work on a book using archival research to explore mystery in O’Connor’s writing.

    Book in Progress

    Mystery Boxes: Flannery O’Connor in the Archives. This book argues that a key to understanding the work of Flannery O’Connor is the idea of mystery in terms of persona, craft, and transcendent meaning and explores the exciting discoveries the archives hold for O’Connor scholars as well as general readers, from papers at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin to the Flannery O’Connor holdings at Georgia College and at Emory University.

    Selected Publications

    • “A Mystery Box: Flannery O’Connor in the Archives.” Forthcoming in Flannery O’Connor Review 23 (2025).
    • Review of Jordan Cofer. The Gospel According to Flannery O’Connor: Examining the Role of the Bible in Flannery O’Connor’s Fiction. Journal of Religion and Literature 47.3 (2015): 162-164.
    • Review of Jordan Cofer. The Gospel According to Flannery O’Connor: Examining the Role of the Bible in Flannery O’Connor’s Fiction. Flannery O’Connor Review 13 (2015): 167-169.
    • “Flannery O’Connor’s Encounter with Mary Ann Long.” Flannery O’Connor Review 11 (2013): 38-49.
    • “Flannery O’Connor, The Holocaust, and the Evolution of Catholicism.” LIT: Literature Interpretation Theory 21.3 (2010): 205-222.
    • “Anger, Anxiety, Abstraction: Virginia Woolf’s ‘Submerged Truth.’” South Central Review 22.2 (2005): 78-94.
    • “Celebrity, Femininity, Lingerie: Dorothy Parker’s Autobiographical Monologues.” Women’s Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal 33.1 (2004): 177-202.
    • “Satire, Gender and the Limits of Literary Theory.” Proceedings of the 24th Annual Southwest Texas Popular Culture Association / American Culture Association Conference, 2003.
    • Review of Women, Modernism and British Poetry, 1910-1939: Resisting Femininity, by Jane Dowson. Virginia Woolf Bulletin 12 (2003): 57-60.
    • “‘I must not settle into a figure’: Virginia Woolf and Celebrity Culture.” Virginia Woolf Bulletin 11 (2002): 8-21.

Selected Presentations

  • “A Mystery Box: Flannery O’Connor in the Archives.” Invited to present for the Flannery O’Connor Institute, October 7, 2025.
  • “‘But Even Above Grief, Wonder’: Wildcat and its Sources.” Presented at Flannery Abroad: A Conference Celebrating Flannery O’Connor’s Centenary, London, UK, June 5-7, 2025.
  • “‘But Even Above Grief, Wonder’: Wildcat and its Sources.” Presented at the American Literature Association Conference in Boston, MA, May 21-24, 2025.
  • “A Mystery Box: Flannery O’Connor in the Archives.” Presented at the Conference in Celebration of Flannery O’Connor’s 100th Birthday. Nicolaus Copernicus University, Torun, Poland, March 25-26, 2025.
  • “A Mystery Box: Flannery O’Connor in the Archives.” Presented at the Flannery O’Connor’s Second Century: Looking Forward, Looking Back Conference. Milledgeville, GA, September 13, 2024.
  • “Flannery O’Connor in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing.” St. Edward’s University, Austin, TX, October 1, 2018.
  • “Teaching Faith and Film: Developing Inspiration at St. Edward’s University.” Presented at the Baylor Symposium on Faith and Culture. Waco, TX, October 23-25, 2014.
  • “‘A Greater Desire’: Revelations in Flannery O’Connor’s Prayer Journal.” Presented at the South Central MLA Conference. Austin, TX, October 18-22, 2014.
  • “Catholicism in Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window.” St. Edward’s University. Austin, TX, October 2012.
  •  “‘Her Face Smiling Up at the Cloudless Sky’: Death and the Divine Eros in Flannery O’Connor’s Fiction.” Presented at the 2012 South Central MLA Conference. San Antonio, TX, November 8-10, 2012.
  • “Flannery O’Connor and the Inspiration of Mary Ann Long.” Presented at the 2011 South Central MLA Conference. Hot Springs, Arkansas, October 25-27, 2011.
  • “O’Connor, Teilhard, Mary Ann: A Moment Towards Convergence.” Presented at “Revelation and Convergence: Flannery O’Connor Among the Philosophers and Theologians.” Loyola University, Chicago, October 6-8, 2011.
  • “A Small and Startling Figure: Mary Ann and the Modes of Good in Flannery O’Connor’s Fiction.” Presented at the Flannery O’Connor Conference. Georgia College, April 14-16, 2011. 
  • “Virginia Woolf, Visionary.” Presented as the public keynote lecture for Senior University Spring Semester.  Georgetown, Texas, January 12, 2005.
  • “Ah, Satire … They’re the Big Boys: Satire, Gender and the Limits of Literary Theory.” Presented at the 24th Annual Southwest Texas PCA / ACA Conference. Albuquerque, New Mexico, February 12-15, 2003. 
  • “Virginia Woolf and Celebrity Culture.” Presented at the Twelfth Annual Conference on Virginia Woolf: Across the Generations. Sonoma State University, June 6-9, 2002.
  •  “Coloring Outside the Lines: Anger in Mrs. Dalloway and To the Lighthouse.” Presented at the Tenth Annual Conference on Virginia Woolf: Virginia Woolf Out of Bounds. University of Maryland, 2000.
  • “Laughing with Rebecca West: One Solution to Feminist Criticism.” Presented at the Annual Conference of the South Central Women’s Studies Association. University of Houston, 1998.