Sarah Heidt joined Kenyon's faculty in 2004 and specializes in nineteenth-century British literature and culture, auto/biography and life writing, and women's writing. She is currently completing a memoir in essays titled "Reading Life: A Love Story." She has published portions of her research into Victorian and contemporary life writings in "Victorian Studies," "Nineteenth-Century Contexts" and "Adaptation." In 2007-08, Heidt held a visiting fellowship at Clare Hall (University of Cambridge), where she is now a life member. She has focused her recent research on holistic and contemplative approaches to college-level teaching and learning, having spent spring 2013 as the Lenz Residential Fellow in Buddhist Studies and American Culture and Values at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado.

Particularly fond of George Eliot, Toni Morrison, Virginia Woolf, Ali Smith, Rebecca Solnit and the OED, Heidt is rarely happier than when immersed in a book, taking a yoga class or sitting in silence.

Heidt has taught the Kenyon Educational Enrichment Program (KEEP) three-week intensive writing course most summers since 2006 and has served as resident director of the Kenyon-Exeter Program (2011-12, 2013-14, 2018-19, 2025), faculty-in-residence (2014-15), faculty co-chair of Campus Senate (2014-16), and English department chair (2016-18). She won the junior Trustee Teaching Excellence Award in 2010 and the Faculty Advising Award in 2017, and she was chosen by the senior class to deliver the Baccalaureate address in 2010 and 2018.

Areas of Expertise

Nineteenth-century British literature and culture, auto/biography and life writing, women's writing, literatures of memory, pedagogy.

Education

2003 — Doctor of Philosophy from Cornell University

2000 — Master of Arts from Cornell University

1997 — Bachelor of Arts from Kenyon College, Phi Beta Kappa

Courses Recently Taught