Hannah Hellman
Hannah graduated from Sonoma State University’s English M.A. program in 2023. Her thesis on Virginia Woolf examined the 1928 novel Orlando: A Biography and the romantic relationship Woolf had with Vita Sackville-West. Hannah has been published by the National Science Teaching Association (NSTA), the Texas Computer Education Association (TCEA)’s blog, TechNotes, and the Gothic Nature Journal, and enjoys bridging the gap between STEM and the Humanities wherever possible. When she is not working as a Communications Specialist and Editor for the NASA partner organization EdEon STEM Learning at Sonoma State University, Hannah can be found writing critically about her favorite books or video games.
Hannah’s Work
‘Life is Sacred in Syl Anagist’: Decolonising Magic and Technology in N.K. Jemisin’s Broken Earth Trilogy
Published in the Gothic Nature Journal, Issue V
This essay examines how N. K. Jemisin’s Broken Earth trilogy (2015-2018) depicts a group of the oppressed taking their land, and their lives, back into their own hands. Beginning with a discussion of Gothic storytelling, this essay invokes the Gothic as a barometer for anxieties we may feel as bodies labouring in capitalist societies that deem the viability of life on this planet as nothing more than the cost of doing business. This advances the Gothic Marxist tradition of solidarity with monsters as a strategy for pushing back against systems of oppression and climate change. Jemisin’s depiction of the collapse of an energy-hungry empire that grew large enough to span the Earth itself offers the reader an opportunity to examine the history, and future, of the U.S. and other empires that consume the lives and land of Indigenous peoples in the name of technological profit-driven progress. This essay then argues that Jemisin’s work tunes into the anxieties generated while living in a society dominated and steered by capitalism, concluding that embracing those made monstrous by these systems and joining them in revolution may be the key to slowing, and even preventing, complete catastrophe.
Keywords: Gothic Marxism, Revolution, Technology, Empire, Decolonisation, ecoGothic
Solarpunk and Rural Education
Published on TCEA’s TechNotes
Solarpunk is an emerging art movement and genre of fiction that emphasizes community, resilience, and hope, represented in vibrant images of humanity that embraces both technology and a healthy relationship with the land. This article explores Solarpunk as a lens for rural education, emphasizing sustainability, creativity, and community resilience. Through this lens, STEM learning becomes connected to real-world challenges and opportunities familiar to rural students.
Art credit: Commando Jugendstil
Teaching for Tomorrow: Science Literacy in the Classroom
Published in NSTA’s The Science Teacher (2024)
Looking towards the future, what STEM skills will be most important for students? Going beyond memorization and recitation of scientific facts, how do we get students to fully engage in science and engineering design practices (as defined in the Next Generation Science Standards) and to improve their science literacy? The answers to these questions are at the heart of the “Learning by Making” (LbyM) experience. LbyM is an innovative, integrated year-long curriculum that includes skill building units that teach coding and how to build simple electronic circuits. Using a simple browser-based interface, LbyM students are able to easily write code, control LED lights and acquire and analyze sensor data within the overarching theme of energy and matter. Rather than being siloed in pre-engineering courses, these important STEM skills are developed within the context of a physical science class. By engaging in phenomena-based explorations, LbyM develops students’ self-efficacy, and ability to work in teams to gather environmental data relevant to their communities and critical to the future of our planet.
Breaking the Binary: Virginia Woolf’s Subversion of the Heteronormative Through Gender Play in Orlando: A Biography
Master of Arts: English Literature Thesis
Breaking The Binary examines Virginia Woolf’s 1928 novel Orlando: A Biography as a feminist subversion of the heteronormative patriarchy. The novel was written for Vita Sackville-West, whom Woolf loved and was romantically involved with from approximately 1925 to 1929. The thesis suggests that Sackville-West experienced the phenomenon known as gender dysphoria and argues that Sackville-West’s masculine tendencies and experiences were incorporated into the novel. Woolf effectively uses both temporality and biography to explore the gender fluid Sackville-West’s life and perspectives on gender.
Art credit: Aurore Simonnet
“Science describes accurately from outside, poetry describes accurately from inside. Science explicates, poetry implicates. Both celebrate what they describe. We need the languages of both science and poetry to save us from merely stockpiling endless ‘information’ that fails to inform our ignorance or our irresponsibility.”
– Ursula K. Le Guin –
“Deep in Admiration,” 2014
Reading List
