Collegian Archives
Elizabeth Fredericks is an assistant professor of English at Hillsdale College. This interview has been edited for length, style, and clarity.
What is one of your favorite memories from your time in college?
We had a poetry professor on campus who encouraged this activity that he called the poetry blitz, where the goal was to slip around campus and put poems in all kinds of places. Our college president hated it, so our professor would be like, “I am not telling you to do this, but this is a thing you could do.” It was such a fun night because I felt like I was doing something a little sneaky but also wonderful and surprising.
Do you have a favorite word?
There’s a few. One is defenestration. It literally means to throw something out a window. There’s also this really delightful Welsh word, “cwtch” (pronounced “kutch,” to rhyme with “butch”). It can mean a burrow, but it can also be a way of describing a hug or a cuddle.
What were some of your interests in your youth?
I was a swimmer from about age 5 through my second year of college, a competitive swimmer. I loved everything relating to water in general, like aquariums. My dad also took a lot of pleasure in introducing us to old films and foreign films.
What are some of your favorite books to teach in Great Books?
Aeschylus’ “Agamemnon” and Charlotte Brontë’s “Jane Eyre.” By the end of the second volume, even the students who look at “Jane Eyre” and think it sounds very girly are like, “I have some very strong feelings about Edward Fairfax Rochester.”
What is one of your favorite places on campus?
I bring my dog in on Tuesdays and Thursdays because I don’t teach, so I actually just really like walking her around the quad in the afternoon.
If you could bring one thing to Hillsdale, what would it be?
Good Indian food. Also, Texas cities just have so many great food trucks. I really miss food truck culture.
Who is one well-known figure you look up to?
The Irish poet Seamus Heaney. He was alive during The Troubles in 20th-century Ireland, which was a really difficult time. It’s nice to read someone like Heaney who’s not perfect but is wonderful on the page and then also pretty darn good off the page.
What is something from your childhood that you wish was still around?
The freedom to have a lot of unstructured time to be imaginative and creative and do what you want — to just enjoy that idle time for daydreaming and things like that.
How do you feel about the cold weather?
I can handle it. I don’t enjoy it, but I can definitely endure it. My dog, on the other hand, suffers through every single second. She is a Texan through and through and so every winter is the winter of her discontent and then every spring she comes alive again.
What is some of the best advice you’ve ever received?
A friend in grad school when I was at seminary said she didn’t like the way that we Christians so often talk about looking for God’s plan for your life with the kind of language that can be really stifling and trapping. She said, “I think if you set out in obedience and faithfulness, God will meet you where you are.”
What advice would you give to incoming freshmen taking Great Books?
When you’re writing, don’t summarize. The other piece of advice would be to give yourself over to the text and let yourself fall into it instead of being suspicious or holding it against your Christian morals to see what weighs up. Don’t read suspiciously, read openly and let it work on you. I think that’s how you get the most out of anything, even things that are not literature. Be open first and critical second.