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Nic Helms received their Ph.D. from the at The University of Alabama in 2015. They are the author of (Springer 2019) and the co-editor of (Amsterdam University Press 2024). Their research applies cognitive science and critical disability studies to early modern drama and poetry. They are currently the coordinator of PSU’s English Program, and they continue to advocate for the working conditions of their colleagues as a past president of and a faculty organizer for the Plymouth Union Caucus. 

If they’re not teaching literature or researching premodern disability and neurodiversity, you’ll probably find Nic reading science fiction or playing board games. They act each summer with Sandwich’s Shakespearean troupe . Before coming to Plymouth, Prof. Helms acted as artistic director of the staged reading series in Tuscaloosa, AL, for over a decade.

Scholarly Work

Water and Cognition in Early Modern English Literature, co-edited with Steve Mentz. Amsterdam University Press, 2024. Part of the series Environmental Humanities in Pre-modern Cultures. DOI: .

"Seeing Brains: Shakespeare, Autism, and Self-Identification." Redefining Disability. Brill, 2022. 152-159. DOI: . 

“Designing for Fatigue.” Co-written with Cait Kirby and Asia Merrill. Hybrid Pedagogy. 27 Jan 2022. .

Cognition, Mindreading, and Shakespeare’s Characters. Springer, 2019. Part of the Cognitive Studies in Literature and Performance Series (eds. Bruce McConachie and Blakey Vermeule). DOI: . 

“To Knit the Knot: Embodied Mind in John Donne’s ‘The Ecstasy.’” The Seventeenth Century, 23 Aug 2018. DOI: .

“‘Upon Such Sacrifices’: An Ethic of Spectator Risk.” Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism 27.1 (2012): 91-107. DOI: .

“Conceiving Ambiguity: Dynamic Mindreading in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night.” Philosophy and Literature 36.1 (2012): 122-35. DOI: .

“‘Where She Comes From’: Mindreading in Levring’s The King is Alive.” ���⳾����ǰ�ŧ 19.1-2 (2011): 289-304. DOI: .

Courses Taught

Muder, Mayhem, and Madness
Composition: Writing about Disability
Studies in English
Rethinking Modern British Literature
Rethinking Medieval and Renaissance Literature
Currents in Global Literature
Critical Theory
Integrative Capstone: Protest and Performance
Integrative Capstone: Rethinking Disability