The (General) Education of Henri(etta) Adams: Living With “the Word”

Authors

Dr. Eleanor Elson Heginbotham, Concordia University, St. Paul

Document Type

Video

Publication Date

3-23-2004

Abstract

Eleanor Elson Heginbotham, Professor of English at Concordia University, St. Paul, has been "educated," in the broadest sense, around the world. Born in California, she grew up in Washington, D.C., in the world of a pastor whose ministry extended well beyond the Capitol. Married to a Foreign Service Officer after her undergraduate years at the College of Wooster in Ohio, she lived and taught in Liberia, Vietnam, and Indonesia. Later, she taught for 18 years in the Washington suburbs while she pursued her M.A. (1971) and Ph.D. (1992) at the University of Maryland. She received the Marion Freedman Greenblatt Award (all levels, all disciplines) for her teaching and the Bode Award for her dissertation on Emily Dickinson.

At Concordia, since 1994, she has taught literature, journalism, and writing classes. She also has presented over a dozen papers at conferences, written a number of articles for scholarly journals, and organized (in collaboration with colleagues) conferences - on Laura Ingalls Wilder, on Emily Dickinson, and in September 2002, the first International Conference of the F. Scott Fitzgerald Society ever hosted by his native city of St. Paul. During her year as a Senior Fulbright Scholar at the University of Hong Kong (1998-99), she taught a full load of classes in American Studies and spoke in other universities in Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, and Thailand. With another Fulbright Scholar in Hong Kong, she arranged a series of viewings and symposia on classic American Films, treated as texts, cinema graphic art and as history. Home again she completed her book, "Reading the Fascicles of Emily Dickinson: Dwelling in Possibilities," published by Ohio State University Press in July 2003. Throughout the past 10 years she has appreciated Concordia's support for her teaching, conferences, publishing and general "education" in the spirit of its stated mission: "to prepare students [and faculty] for thoughtful and informed living, for dedicated service to God and humanity, and for the enlightened care of God's creation, all within the context of the Christian Gospel." She retired in June 2004.

Recommended Citation

Heginbotham, Dr. Eleanor Elson, "The (General) Education of Henri(etta) Adams: Living With “the Word”" (2004). Poehler Lecture. 20.
https://digitalcommons.csp.edu/poehler_lecture/20