Origin Stories: Heather Love (Video)

The Professor of English on school as a stable place during a mobile childhood, her journey to academia via a furniture store, and her joy in discovering the many ways to study literature and work for justice.

Wednesday, May 10, 2023

Video by Brooke Sietinsons
Text by Susan Ahlborn

Origin Stories is a feature of OMNIA in which we highlight the journeys of members of our faculty as they followed their paths from impressionable young students to world-class scholars working at the cutting edge of their fields.



During a childhood spent moving around, literature and school were constants for Heather Love. She found new vistas at Harvard, but after she graduated she wasn’t sure what she wanted to do, so she worked in a furniture store for five years. By the time she went to graduate school, studies of queer theory, the history of sexuality, and other questions around LGBT justice that fascinated her were underway. Now the professor and graduate chair of English teaches gender studies and continues to expand her interests and influence. She’s won several teaching awards and recently was named a Guggenheim Fellow.