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Henderson Lecture Investigates Role Artists Play in a Broken Society

Posted on Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Dr. Bethany Hicok, Westminster assistant professor of English, will deliver the Henderson Lecture Wednesday, Oct. 4, at 7 p.m. in the Witherspoon Maple Room of the McKelvey Campus Center.

Hicok's research, "Marianne Moore's Student Hero: Poetry and Politics in the 1930s" centers around how Moore's "poetry was a strategic challenge to the increasingly alarming social and political situation at home and abroad" during this time period.

"That dispute of 75 years ago still has much to teach us about how poetry can contribute to political and social discussion today," Hicok writes. "My talk will help restore the narrative of Moore's response to politics in the 1930s and show how much this response was influenced by the progressive educational reforms that marked her liberal arts college experience in the early part of the century. Moore's poetry of the 1930s, I will argue, considers the broader questions raised by the era - the problems of poverty, racism, and anti-Semitism."

"Reflecting progressive educational values, Moore continues to assert, with a glance back to her 19th century predecessor Ralph Waldo Emerson, that individual and artistic freedom must be maintained if there is to be any hope for the world," Hicok concludes.

Hicok, who has been with Westminster College since 2001, earned her undergraduate degree from Russell Sage College, and her masters' and Ph.D. from the University of Rochester. Her book, Degrees of Freedom: American Women Poets and the Women's College, 1905-1955, is under consideration at the Bucknell University Press. She has published articles on the American poets Elizabeth Bishop and Marianne Moore and delivered a number of papers on American poetry at professional conferences, including the Modern Language Association annual conference.

The Henderson Lecture was founded by Dr. Joseph R. Henderson and his wife, Elizabeth, to encourage and recognize original and continuing research and scholarship among Westminster College faculty, and to afford the opportunity for faculty to share their learning with the academic community. Dr. Henderson is a professor emeritus of education at Westminster, and served as chair of the Department of Education and director of the Graduate Program. Each year Westminster faculty members may nominate themselves or others to receive the lectureship, which includes a stipend to support a specific research project. A special faculty committee chooses from the nominees.

Contact Hicok at (724) 946-6349 or e-mail hicokbf@westmnster.edu for more information.

Dr. Bethany Hicok