We are deeply saddened to learn of the death of American studies scholar Elizabeth Freeman. She had been battling cancer and was 58 years old.
Freeman was Professor of English at University of California, Davis. She received her PhD from the University of Chicago and first taught at Sarah Lawrence College.
Freeman is the author of Beside You in Time (2019), which was a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award; Time Binds (2010); and The Wedding Complex (2002); and co-editor (with Teagan Bradway) of Queer Kinship (2022). She was also co-editor of our journal GLQ from 2011 to 2017. She co-edited two journal special issues: Queer Temporalities (GLQ 13:2-3, 2007) and Crip Temporalities (SAQ 120:2, 2021). Her article “Sacra/Mentality in Djuna Barnes’s Nightwood” received the 2014 Norman Foerster Prize for the best essay published in American Literature. She also published in many of our other journals and was a friend to the Press, serving as a peer reviewer countless times.
Senior Executive Editor Ken Wissoker says, “Beth was brilliant and kind and funny, a perfect friend, author, and colleague in every way. We met when we were both starting out. I hadn’t been an editor for long and she was the graduate student on an MLA panel that included Lauren Berlant and other big name queer theorists of the time. Over the years we shared ideas, gossip, and friendship, working on her books. This is a truly devastating loss. My heart goes out to all her friends, her partner Candace Moore, and her son, Felix.”
Director of Editing, Design, and Production Amy Ruth Buchanan adds, “Beth was an influential and generous scholar, a warm and loving friend, and a fiercely devoted parent. I was lucky first to work on her books, and then to call her a friend. Her passing, though expected, is devastating.”
As she was fighting cancer, Freeman took the time on Facebook to ask her friends to donate blood and to get their recommended colonoscopies. In the last few days, farewells and tributes have poured in from her colleagues, students, and friends, many of whom are also Duke University Press authors. Our thoughts are with her family and all those who cared about her.
Duke University Press News 