The King Chair

Shakespeare scholar named to inaugural professorship

The King Chair

Shakespeare scholar named to inaugural professorship

A Shakespeare scholar whose public talks focus on the Bard in popular culture has been selected to hold the inaugural Stephen E. King Chair in Literature at the University of Maine. Caroline Bicks joined the UMaine English Department faculty in September from Boston College, where she was an associate professor of English.

Caroline Bicks

Caroline Bicks

In addition to Shakespeare, Bicks’ other areas of specialization include women and gender in early modern literature and culture, early modern drama, the history of science, and girlhood studies.

The Stephen E. King Chair in Literature was established in the University of Maine Foundation with a $1 million gift from the Harold Alfond Foundation in honor of the UMaine alumnus’ substantial body of work and his creative impact. Its goal is to advance excellence in the creation, study and appreciation of literature and the humanities. In addition to recruiting and retaining a top scholar, the endowed fund supports the creation of innovative learning opportunities for students, and activities that advance creative writing, literature and the humanities on campus and in the community.

Bicks received a Ph.D. from Stanford University in 1997, and spent a year there as a postdoctoral fellow. She is a New York City native who grew up spending her summers in Castine.

“I remember reading every Stephen King book they had at the Castine public library. It’s an enormous privilege to be holding this chair in King’s honor.” Caroline Bicks

Bicks is the author of Midwiving Subjects in Shakespeare’s England and co-editor of The History of British Women’s Writing, 1500–1610, which received the Society for the Study of Early Modern Women Collaborative Research Award. Most recently, she co-authored an irreverent Bard-meets-life cocktail book, Shakespeare, Not Stirred: Cocktails for Your Everyday Dramas.

Her current book project challenges conventional views of the adolescent female brain in early modern England, arguing that girls were seen as inventive and culturally influential — inquiring and retentive minds that, in turn, captured the imaginations of early modern playwrights who frequently featured the brainwork of these teenage heroines.

Bicks’ public lectures across the country focus on Shakespeare’s relevance and vibrancy today, including echoes of the Bard in popular culture. For Bicks, that can even include the parallels between Shakespeare’s Juliet and Stephen King’s Carrie.

“I’m always seeking to bring the humanities out of the ivory tower and, in turn, to ensure that the academic spaces I’m privileged to create reflect the diversity of human experience that my students bring with them,” Bicks says.

“I’m always seeking to bring the humanities out of the ivory tower and, in turn, to ensure that the academic spaces I’m privileged to create reflect the diversity of human experience that my students bring with them,” Bicks says.

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