ELIZABETH FREEMAN (1966-2024) taught in the English Department at UC Davis from 2000 until her retirement in 2024. She received her PhD from the University of Chicago and taught at Sarah Lawrence College before coming to UC Davis.
Freeman was a ground-breaking scholar in the fields of American literary studies and queer and feminist theory. She was the author of three influential books: The Wedding Complex: Forms of Belonging in Modern American Culture (Duke UP, 2002), Time Binds: Queer Temporalities, Queer Histories (Duke UP, 2010), and Beside You in Time: Sense-Methods and Queer Sociabilities in Nineteenth-Century America (Duke UP, 2019). She also published numerous scholarly articles in journals such as Journal of Homosexuality, Feminist Formations, and American Literary History. Her list of honors and awards included a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship, an ACLS Fellowship, a UC Davis Chancellor’s Fellowship, and a UC Davis Distinguished Graduate Teaching Award. In addition to teaching undergraduate and graduate courses during her time at UC Davis, Freeman also served as the Associate Dean of Faculty in the College of Letters and Science.