Rebecca Housel is an author/editor listed in the Directory of American Poets and Writers [1] and sponsored member of the National Association of Science Writers [2] by Prevention magazine's Rebecca Skloot and environmental writer, Sharon Levy. Housel is known for her prose in popular culture,[3] philosophy, film, medical humanities, and young adult/middle grade fiction. Housel is a feminist scholar and social theorist influenced by Jean Baudrillard, Judith Butler, Hannah Arendt, and Joseph Campbell. Housel speaks multiple languages, including French and Hebrew. Her literary influences show a deep and compassionate global perspective with references to the Bhagavad Gita, Upanishads, Tao Te Ching, Sir Thomas More's Utopia, Sun Tzu's Art of War, Ayn Rand, Albert Einstein's Relativity and Special Relativity, Brian Greene's Super String Theory, Paulo Coelho, Flannery O'Connor, Margaret Atwood, and Stephen King.
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Housel was born in Boston, Massachusetts to a multi-cultural family. Housel attended New England Hebrew Academy in Boston, later transferring to public high school in southeastern Massachusetts. She attended University of Rochester [4] on a full merit scholarship and graduated High Honors with a Bachelors (1997) and a Masters (1998). At University of Rochester, Rebecca was a Senior Scholar, working with Thomas Hahn, a renowned Robin Hood scholar and medievalist; her later work was guided by Guggenheim and MacArthur Fellow, Joanna Scott, who is also the recipient of multiple prestigious literary awards such as the LA Times Book Award, the Aga Khan, and the Pushcart Prize, as well as being a Pulitzer-finalist. Another early professor who would later influence Housel's work was Derek Harrison, a philosophy professor acknowledged in Housel's edited volume Twilight and Philosophy: Vampires, Vegetarians, and the Pursuit of Immortality (2009) with J. Jeremy Wisnewski, part of William Irwin's Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture Series with John Wiley & Sons.[5]
Housel received her Ph.D. from the University of New South Wales[6] in Sydney, Australia, where she studied with innovative linguist and nonfiction writer Suzanne Eggins and Anne Brewster, an international scholar and writer known for her use of fictocriticism. Housel studied patterns in women's cancer diagnoses, discovering through qualitative research, a connection with sustained, consistent physical and/or emotional stress six months to one year prior to a diagnosis. Housel used a transnational, intersubjective, reflexive approach that lead to two forthcoming books (written in 2005-2006) on the subject, where Housel first coined the terms pathogynography and ethnogynography in reference to women's illness narratives.
Housel currently lives in the United States. Over the last decade, she has written and edited 11 books and more than 40 essays, articles, book chapters, book reviews, and encyclopedia entries. Rebecca Housel has made over 50 lectures and speeches at universities, schools, and other venues. She recently completed a signing and lecture tour of the Northeastern United States for her books on X-Men and Twilight.
Housel was diagnosed with cancer at age 20. At the time, Rebecca was a stand-up comedian at Nick's Comedy Stop[7] on Warrenton Ave., in Boston, Massachusetts. She was also a survivor of domestic violence and volunteered at a supervised-visitiation center in Brockton, Massachusetts. She worked with Nick's Comedy Stop to raise money for the visitation center and awareness about domestic violence. Housel also trained to be a domestic violence victim advocate and volunteered as a visitation supervisor for biological parent visits with abused children. She briefly attended Massasoit Community College before moving to New York State.
Her experience with domestic violence influenced Housel's work in her later volume on Twilight, where Housel explores how a 100-year old vampire who only looks 17 initiates a real 17-year old girl in an intimate relationship after stalking the girl by climbing through an unsecured window of her home at night to watch her sleep, watching her movements while hidden in the woods near her home, secretly following her on day-trips with friends, etc.
Rebecca Housel began her career as a professor of English teaching at Nazareth College, St. John Fisher College, and Rochester Institute of Technology,[8] where she founded a writing scholarship called the Phoenix Fiction Award, also founding a writing club, Inklings, in honor of C.S.Lewis and J.R.R.Tolkien. Housel began using more pop culture and philosophy in her writing curriculum to get the interest of her RIT students, leading to her book chapters on the philosophy of superheroes, poker and Monty Python.[9]
Housel wrote The High Seas Series from 1998–2000, publishing with High Noon Press in 2001. The Series is a five-book short-novel set of middle-grade fiction that was also meant to be used for new adult readers with a second-grade readability level. The books take place in maritime communities of the 19th century with characters ranging in age from 9-16. The books grew out of research done with Hahn and Scott at the University of Rochester.[10]
Rebecca served as the national Film Adaptation Area Chair for the Popular Culture Association and American Culture Association from 2004–2009; she served as Medical Humanities Area Chair from 2007-2008. Housel still serves on the Editorial Advisory Boards for the Journal of Popular Culture and Journal of American Culture.[11]
Housel was appointed to the New York College English Association Board of Directors in 2003;[12] from 2006–2008, Housel was elected to the position of Vice President. In 2008, Housel became President. Housel also started an e-journal called NYCEA NEWS, which she edited and webmastered through fall 2010.[13]
Rebecca Housel met William Irwin in 2003 at a State University of New York at Buffalo conference on Philosophy and Popular Culture. From there, the two worked together within Irwin's two book series on the subjects. Her most recent project with Irwin is being co-edited with philosopher, George Dunn, entitled, True Blood and Philosophy, forthcoming in June 2010.[14]
In 2003, after surviving multiple battles with cancer, Housel started a nonprofit with Gilda's Club called the Phoenix Fund. Organizing an awareness walk called 'Survive and Thrive', Housel's fund helped raise money to defer medical costs not covered by health insurance for brain tumor patients. In 2007, the fund was transferred to Strong Memorial Hospital, where the majority of patients who utilized the Fund were treated.
In 2007, Housel started a website for Steph's Fund, a grassroots nonprofit in New York State that contributes to breast cancer awareness and helps a young family who lost their mother to breast cancer in 2006.[15]
Housel is currently writing and editing. She also does lectures on a variety of topics, including disability, cancer, popular culture, writing, and the college experience.[16][17][18][19][20]
Housel met Anne Rice in 1995; the author's fictional work using historical contexts and complex characters influenced Housel's later works.
Housel also had meetings with middle grade/young adult authors, Elvira Woodruff and Bruce Coville in the 1990s, as well as children's author/illustrator Steven Kellogg. Eric Kimmel was another young adult author Housel would meet during that time period. These meetings would prove very influential on Housel's writing.
Jarhead author, Anthony Swofford met Housel while speaking at Rochester Institute of Technology; within the next year, Swofford's book was adapted into a Hollywood blockbuster starring Jake Gyllenhall and Jamie Foxx.[21]
Housel's connection to Joanna Scott was made during Housel's years at the University of Rochester. Scott pushed Housel to seek representation for her writing; Scott also encouraged Housel to pursue a writing career. In 2003, Housel was a guest instructor for Scott's Advanced Creative Writing Course at the University of Rochester.
Housel also met with poet, Barbara Jordan, at the University of Rochester, as well as James Longenbach. Jordan was very influential on Housel's eye toward poetic prose.
Housel dined with Harvard-educated author, Colson Whitehead in Rochester during his 2002 visit to promote his book The Intuitionist. Whitehead had received a MacArthur Fellowship in 2002.
Housel met Andre Dubus III in 2004; Dubus's House of Sand and Fog was a National Book Award finalist in 1999 and became a film adaptation of the same name in 2003.[22]
Housel was sponsored by essayist, science writer and best-selling author, Rebecca Skloot, to the National Association of Science Writers in 2007. Skloot's most recent book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks came out in February 2010.
Housel was approached in 2009 by Emmy-winning writer/producer, Thomas Wagner (Writer) (who also received an Academy nod for his musical composition for HBO's "Daughter of the Bride"). Known best for his Emmy-winning PBS documentary on Lucille Ball, Wagner went to Housel for her expertise in American comic books.[23]