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Expertise: American literature, with specialties in literature of the Beat Movement, contemporary American literature, African American literature, and poetry
Educational Background
Scholarly Interests
modern and contemporary African American women writers; Beat Movement authors Jack Kerouac and Herbert Huncke; poetry writing
Bio Sketch
Hilary Holladay’s research interests include literature of the Beat Movement, African American literature, and modern American poetry. She is the author of What's Your Road, Man? Critical Essays on Jack Kerouac's On the Road (co-edited with Robert Holton; Southern Illinois University Press, 2008); Wild Blessings: The Poetry of Lucille Clifton (LSU Press, 2004); Ann Petry's Short Fiction: Critical Essays (co-editor, with Hazel Arnett Ervin; Praeger, 2004); and Ann Petry (Twayne, 1996). She has also published a poetry collection, The Dreams of Mary Rowlandson (Loom Press, 2006) and a poetry chapbook, Baptism in the Merrimack (Loom Press, 1999). Her current project is a biography of the Beat Movement icon Herbert Huncke. For 2008-2009, she is on leave from UMass Lowell while serving as Senior Program Fellow at the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities in Charlottesville, Va.
As director of the Kerouac Center for American Studies, she administers the American Studies Program and directs the Kerouac Conference on Beat Literature (held biennially; the next one will be in Oct. '09). The Center also sponsors the New England Poetry Conference (held each spring), as well as guest lectures by scholars whose research reflects the interdisciplinary perspective of American Studies. Long-range plans include developing a master’s program in American Studies at UMass Lowell and establishing ties with American Studies programs at universities in other countries.