Professor's Book is Published
Posted on Monday, November 3, 2008
Dr. Bethany Hicok, Westminster College associate professor of English, is the author of Degrees of Freedom: American Women Poets and the Women's College, 1905-1955 that was recently published by Bucknell University Press.
Degrees of Freedom traces the influence of the women's college on the poetic development of American poets Marianne Moore at Bryn Mawr, Elizabeth Bishop at Vassar, and Sylvia Plath at Smith.
Drawing on extensive archival research, Hicok demonstrates how the women's colleges provided an important source of cultural and critical authority for American women poets and played a central role in their poetic development. She argues Moore, Bishop, and Plath were each part of a supportive, but also competitive, community of writers and scholars who honed their writing skills in college classes and in literary magazines.
The book offers theoretically and historically grounded new readings of their poetry within the specific cultural and literary context of the women's college in order to sharpen and deepen understanding of women's poetic production.
The book's cover was designed by 2008 Westminster graduate Julie Tvaruzek.
Hicok, who has been with Westminster since 2001, earned an undergraduate degree from Russell Sage College and masters and Ph.D. from the University of Rochester.
Contact Hicok at (724) 946-6349 or e-mail hicokbf@westminster.edu for more information.
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