Hannah Cowles Freeman: English Professor
By Jada Bratton
Hannah Cowles Freeman is a May 2003 Western Carolina University
graduate, earning a master’s degree in English. She
recently completed a Ph.D. at the University of Kentucky and
will be starting as an assistant professor of English at Pikeville
College, a liberal arts school in Eastern Kentucky.
Glady will she learn...
Freeman studies 19th century British Literature, particularly
women authors such as George Eliot, Emily Bronte, and Olive
Schreiner, who writes about place and landscape. She also
finds interest in 20th century postcolonial writers who explore
their conflicted relationship to home.
“I loved my time at Western. My relationships with
my professors there really inspired me to pursue this profession.”
...And gladly teach
Freeman teaches courses in British literature that begin
with the Restoration and move forward to contemporary British
and anglophone literatures. Her specialty area is the long
19th century, beginning with Romanticism and concluding with
Modernism. Freeman also teaches courses in women’s literature
and gender studies.
Freeman plans to contribute to others students’ appreciation
of English. “As a teacher, I help students to make their
own discoveries through the exchange of ideas and to develop
critical thinking through the transmission of those ideas
into thoughtful writing. All of my courses and extracurricular
activities encourage curiosity, inquiry and reflection because
these are essential ingredients to sympathy and understanding.
What starts with mutual awareness and enlightenment in the
classroom will stay with us and guide us in our daily lives.
Freeman adds, "I hope my classes and the texts I assign
can cultivate interest in individuals who might then seek
knowledge on their own as they move to lead more introspective
and meaningful lives.”
With honors
Freeman has received various awards in her career, including
the University of Kentucky’s Provost’s Award for
Outstanding Teaching (2007-2008) and the Theodore L. Hughuelet
Outstanding Graduate Assistant Teaching and Scholarship Award
from Western Carolina University in 2002.
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