Dr H was born and raised in Chicago and its near north suburbs. She spent her teen years doing too little studying and a lot of restaurant work, acting, and singing for pop rock and new wave bands. After nearly failing out of high school, she got it together and graduated, then went on to complete her BA in English (creative writing and literature tracks) at Lake Forest College, where she received an award for excellence in creative writing. Next, she spent seven mostly wonderful years getting her MA and PhD in English at the University of Iowa. Upon graduating, she was hired as assistant professor of English at MTSU, where she has now taught for 30 years.

Helford has always been driven by an eclectic curiosity (gets bored without new challenges), generally guided by a dedication to equality and justice from an intersectional feminist perspective and her Jewish American background. In addition to literary, film, and pop culture studies, she has at various times been a Rocky Horror re-enactor, a Star Trek fan, a student of Cubism, a community theater officionado, and an Otaku. Most recently, she has devoted her energies to the study of classic Hollywood, including its Jewish American origins, its gender and race representations, director George Cukor, and film noir style. 

After a bout with breast cancer in 2010 and 2018 lung surgery -- from both of which she has recovered with much relief -- she has become more of a homebody, particularly enjoying time with her husband of 25+ years, her son (a recent MTSU graduate in Political Science), and three cats. When time permits, she enjoys casual gaming (Minecraft, Animal Crossing, Stardew Valley), pool volleyball, film and TV watching with family and friends, and vegetarian cooking.

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Books Published

• What Price Hollywood? Gender and Sex in the Films of George Cukor (UP of Kentucky, 2020). Soon to be out in paperback.
  

• The Woman Fantastic in Contemporary Media Culture (University Press of Mississippi, 2016; paperback 2018), collection co-edited with Shiloh Carroll, Sarah Gray, and Michael Howard (three MTSU English PhD students, now all graduated and in tenure-track or full-time academic positions).

• Fantasy Girls: Gender in the New Universe of Science Fiction and Fantasy (Rowman and Littlefield, 2000), edited collection.

• Enterprise Zones: Critical Positions on Star Trek (Westview 1996), collection co-edited with Taylor Harrison, Sarah Projansky, and Kent Ono.

Forthcoming

• Liminal Noir, Edinburgh University Press (2023), co-edited with Christopher Weedman
  • "Race and the Noir Western: Navigating The Walking Hills" (chapter)

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Helford has avoided travel since the pandemic began, but has enjoyed presenting via Zoom or in town for conferences, courses, and podcasts over the past two years:

• "Holocaust Memory in Jane Yolen’s The Devil’s Arithmetic and Nava Semel’s And the Rat Laughed," MTSU Holocaust Studies Conference, 23 Sep 2022.
• "Judy Holliday: Jewish Assimilation and 1950s Hollywood," Jewish Women's Archive Online History Course on Jewish Women in Television and Film. 2 June 2022.
• "Queerness and the Classic Western," Interview for Queering the West Podcast, 14 March 2022. Forthcoming on Audible.com.
• "Jewishness, Survivor Guilt, and Billy Wilder’s Ace in the Hole," Western Jewish Studies Association Conference, 14 March 2021.
• "George Cukor Scholar Elyce Helford," Living Room Film Club, Belcourt Theater and Nashville Scene, 13 January 2021.

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