Directory Profile

Research Interests

• World Mythology
• Goddess Studies
• Feminism and Religion
• Ecocriticism

Awards, Distinctions, and Honors

• 2013 Horace T. Morse Alumni Association Award for Outstanding Contributions to Undergraduate Teaching, UMN
• 2019 Distinguished Scholar Award
• 2015 Outstanding Educator Award
• 2013 Distinguished Teaching Award
• 2010 Outstanding Educator Award
• 2006 Most Creative Use of Technology Award
• 2005 Outstanding Service Learning Faculty Award

Selected Publications

• McCoppin, Rachel. The Legacy of the Goddess: Heroines, Warriors and Witches from World Mythology to Folktales and Fairy Tales. McFarland Publishers, 2024.
• McCoppin, Rachel. Goddess Lost: How the Downfall of Female Deities Degraded Women's Status in World Cultures. McFarland Publishers, 2023.
• McCoppin, Rachel. The Ecological Heroes of Amerindian Mythology. Kendall Hunt Publishers, Dubuque: IA, Jan. 2019.
• McCoppin, Rachel. The Hero’s Quest and the Cycles of Nature: An Ecological Interpretation of World Mythology. McFarland Publishers, Fall 2016.    
• McCoppin, Rachel. The Lessons of Nature in Mythology. McFarland Publishers, Fall 2015.
• "Personal Responsibility in Modern Literature" - Published in the Association for the Study of Ethical Behavior in Literature (ASEBL) Journal. 2010
• “Salvation from Angst: Redefining Objective “Truth” for the Subjective “truth” of the Present Moment” - Published in the journal World Literary Review 2011
• McCoppin, Rachel. “Spartacus’ Entrapment in the Underworld in Blood and Sand.” Ed. Michael Cornelius. In Progress – Tentatively published by McFarland Press, 2015.
• McCoppin, Rachel. “Perverse Selves: Unwanted Impulses and Obsession in Poe.” In Press – Scheduled for publication in a collection on Poe, Ed. Gerry Del Guercio. Lehigh, PA: Lehigh University Press, 2015.
• McCoppin, Rachel. “Jesus as Modern Metaphor in Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath.” In Press - Scheduled to be published in Studies in the Literary Imagination, 46.2, 2014.
• McCoppin, Rachel. “Confused Reality: The War Masks in Japanese Author, Hikaru Okuizumi’s The Stones Cry Out and Argentine Author, Jorge Luis Borges’ “The Garden of Forking Paths.’” Rupkatha: Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies in the Humanities, 5.3, 2013.
• McCoppin, Rachel. “Composition Multiculturalism.” Real-Life Writers: Composition Courses as Pathways to Student Success. Eds. Lillian Craton and Renee Love. Lafayette, IN: Parlor Press, 2015.
• McCoppin, Rachel. “An Odd Quest Continued: The Heroes of Tim Burton.” Tim Burton: Works, Characters, and Themes. Ed. Johnson Cheu. In Progress - Tentatively published by McFarland Press, 2015.
• Jesus as Modern Metaphor in Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath and Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five” - Accepted for publication in the journal Studies in the Literary Imagination for its Fall issue (no. 46, vol. 2). 2012
• “War, Children, and Altruism in J. D. Salinger’s Nine Stories” - Published in the journal Akedemeia 2011
• “The Moral Path: Personal Responsibility and Altruism in the Works of Katherine Anne Porter” - Published in the journal The Journal of Texas Women Writers. 2009
• “Sympathy for the Other: British Attempts at Understanding the American Indian" - Published in the journal Symbiosis 2010
• “Spiritual Metamorphosis: The Transformation of Transcendentalism to Existentialism through Walt Whitman” - Published in a book entitled The Poetry of Walt Whitman: New Critical Perspectives edited by Kanwar Dinesh Singh and published by Atlantic Publishers. 2009
• “Horrific Obsessions: Poe’s Legacy of the Unreliable Narrator” - Accepted for publication in a book entitled Adapting Poe: Re-Imaginings in International and Popular Culture, published by Palgrave Macmillan. 2012
• "Sympathy for the Other: British Attempts at Understanding the American Indian" - in a book on Anti-Americanism in British Literature edited by Dr. Diana Archibald
• “Extending Kenneth Burke and Multicultural Education: Being Actively Revised by the Other” co-authored with Dr. Mark Huglen - Published in a book entitled Humanistic critique of education: Teaching and Learning as Symbolic Action. 2010
• “‘God Damn It, You’ve Got to be Kind:’ War and Altruism in the works of Kurt Vonnegut” - Published in a book entitled New Critical Essays on Kurt Vonnegut edited by David Simmons and published by Palgrave Macmillan. 2009
• "Transcendental Legacies: Transcendental and Existential Tenets in Modernism and Postmodernism" in the journal Stirrings Still: The International Journal of Existential Literature Edited by Erik M. Grayson, Binghamton University
• "Questioning Ethics: Incorporating the Novel into Ethics Courses" - in the book Teaching the Novel across the Curriculum, Edited by Colin Irvine, published by Greenwood Press
• "Leaning on the North" - in the June/July 2007 issue of SIRR Magazine
• "Existentialism in the Classroom: Practical Application to Nietzsche" - in the journal InterCulture, Issue 3
• "Existential Endurance: Resolution from Accepting the 'Other' in J. M. Coetzee's Disgrace" - in the journal The International Journal of Existential Literature Edited by Erik M. Grayson, Binghamton University
• "Creating American Literature" - in the journal Teaching American Literature: A Journal of Theory and Practice . Spring 2007, Vol. 2, Issue 2.
• "Being Actively Revised by the Other: Opposition and Incorporation" - in the book Teaching Ideas for the Basic Communication Course , Vol. 10. Ed. Barbara Hugenberg and Lawrence Hugenberg. Dubuque , IA : Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company for the National Communication Association, 2006. Co-authored by McCoppin, Rachel, and Mark E. Huglen
• McCoppin, Rachel. “Vonnegut and Postmodernism: A Review of Robert Tally’s Kurt Vonnegut and the American Novel: A Postmodern Iconography.” Studies in the Novel, 45.2, Summer 2013.
• McCoppin, Rachel. “Using Fiction in the Application of Ethics.” Fiction as Research Practice. Ed. by Patricia Leavy. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press, 2013.
• McCoppin, Rachel. “The Needed Underworld: Modern Reactions to Symbolic Death in Myth.” In Press - in a book collection entitled Mythology and Modern Women Poets: Analysis, Reflection & Teaching, Ed. Colleen Harris, to be published by McFarland Publishers, 2015.

Educational Background

• B.A. in English from the University of Michigan - Flint, Flint, MI
• M.A. in English from Northern Michigan University, Marquette, MI
• Ph.D. in English from Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Indiana, PA

Professional Memberships

• International Society of Romanticism
• Michigan Academy
• Modern Language Association (MLA)
• Feminism and Religion Language
• Literature, and Cultural Studies
• Humanities

Biography

• Rachel McCoppin, Ph.D. is a Professor of literature at the University of Minnesota Crookston. She has published the books: Goddess Lost: How the Downfall of Female Deities Degraded Women's Status in World Cultures (McFarland 2023), The Ecological Heroes of Amerindian Mythology (Kendall-Hunt 2019), The Lessons of Nature in Mythology (McFarland 2015), and The Hero’s Journey and the Cycles of Nature (McFarland 2016). She has also published many scholarly articles in the areas of mythology and comparative literature. Her work has appeared in journals including: Symbiosis, Studies in American Humor, Studies in the Novel, World Literary Review, etc. and in many scholarly books published by Palgrave Macmillan, McFarland, Atlantic, Greenwood Press, etc.