Stephen E. King Chair in Literature

From the inaugural Stephen E. King Chair: Caroline Bicks

Caroline Bicks is an internationally-recognized Shakespeare scholar who has published widely on early modern drama, gender, and the history of science. She studied Renaissance poetry at Harvard University as an undergraduate and received her Phd in English Literature from Stanford University. Her monographs on early modern literature and culture include Midwiving Subjects in Shakespeare’s England (Ashgate, 2003); and Cognition and Girlhood in Shakespeare’s World (Cambridge University Press, 2021). 

After fifteen years serving on the English faculty at Boston College, she became the inaugural Stephen E. King Chair in Literature at the University of Maine in 2017. The endowed Chair’s mission is to support the public humanities, a challenge that Bicks has embraced by giving talks around the state to a wide variety of audiences, and bringing award-winning fiction writers, journalists, educators, and activists to speak and work with different Maine communities. 

The uniquely public-facing nature of her position as King Chair complements the creative nonfiction pieces she has delivered to popular audiences over the years across various media platforms, including the Modern Love column for the New York Times, NPR’s “All Things Considered,” and the show Afterbirth, which she performed in alongside Andrew McCarthy, Andrea Martin, and other professional actors. Bicks’s award-winning blog, “Everyday Shakespeare,” was the inspiration for her humorous book, Shakespeare, Not Stirred: Cocktails for Your Everyday Dramas, co-authored with Michelle Ephraim. In April 2023, they launched their Webby-Award honored Everyday Shakespeare podcast, where they use their talents as educators and entertainers to deliver fresh, funny insights into how Shakespeare’s world connects to ours.

In 2022, Stephen and Tabitha King granted her access to their private archive of manuscript drafts and other materials related to the legendary author’s career. The book that came out of what she discovered, Monsters in the Archives: My Year of Fear with Stephen King, will be out with Hogarth/PRH in April 2026.