Teddi Chichester
Teddi Lynn Chichester earned her PhD in English from UCLA in 1992, with a psycho-biographical dissertation on Percy Shelley’s views of love and sexuality, a study published by SUNY Press in 1999 as Shelley’s Mirrors of Love: Narcissism, Sacrifice, and Sorority. This project, as well as her later writings on the British Romantics, generated her central themes for Writing Programs courses ranging from English 2 through 5W: family dynamics, romantic love, and nature/environmental writing. Intellectual underpinnings of Dr. Chichester’s courses include psychoanalytic theory, literary ecocriticism, environmental justice, and gender studies. As the daughter of a long-time community college professor, she finds work with transfer students particularly rewarding. Her childhood and adolescence in California’s Central Valley instilled a deep connection with Bruins from this marginalized region, many of whom are first generation college students. Her book for young readers (ages 10+), Wildlife Crossings of Hope: Connecting Creatures Across the Globe, a Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection, was published in 2024 by Holiday House. The book explores how “animal infrastructure” like below-road culverts and vegetated bridges (including the massive Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing just north of LA), dam demolition, and ecological corridors are helping creatures from mountain lions to moths find safe passage in our built-up world.