Diane Moon Sautter

Professor
B.A., English and Drama, Syracuse University
M.A., English and Creative Writing
Ph.D. Humanities, Danforth Fellowship
dsautter@nmu.edu

Teaching Specialties

• Mythology
• Period and Contemporary Poetry
• Myth and Literature
• Narrative and Descriptive Writing
• Technical Writing

After semiotics and deconstruction have dissolved myth into language issues, Dr. Sautter says that it may be precisely the dissolving of the ancient mythologies into language that allows myth to disperse in a new and less dogmatic manner, creating fractal patterns of myths. Dr. Sautter's graduate studies were in the Humanities (an English, Religion and Myth, and Creative Writing combination). Since interdisciplinary approaches do not settle into the usual academic niches, the "interdisciplinist" slides here and there, finding her own footing, balancing above the grooves. According to Dr. Sautter, you can boil all her teaching specialties down to one basic activity: the teaching of writing. Forays into writing are the heart of her writing classes, and forays into the results of story telling and writing are the heart of her myth and literature classes; crossovers between writing and reading find their foundation in the mythic as established in story and language. Diane has published poetry in The Mid West Quarterly, Passages North, and Paterson Literary Review. Her literary studies on the Golem and on Southeast Asian Literature have been published by Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts and Journal of Literature and Aesthetics . W.C. Williams said that "It is difficult/ to get the news from poems / yet men die miserably every day / for lack of what is found there." In her personal writing and teaching, Diane looks to the act of writing/reading to bring across news from the other side of the mind and the other side of culture. From the ancient archetype of the Muse to the Arrival of the Fifth World (which the Hopi prophecy for the present time), writing is a Shamanic skill that functions to provide metaphors that guide us. In addition to her NMU teaching, Diane's avocation is studying and teaching Yoga, which she finds an extremely clear system for personal and spiritual development. She is an advisor and teacher for the NMU Yoga organization, "Hearts of Yoga." Since the Sanskrit root of the word Yoga means "to yoke" or "to join," Yoga is a natural pursuit for a cross-disciplinist. (If Toni Morrison can be a womanist, I can be a cross-disciplinist, Diane says.) Dr. Sautter is presently working on a text for teaching writing from mythical and interdisciplinary perspectives.