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Gregg Hecimovich

Professor

Curriculum Vitae
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GREGG HECIMOVICH is the author of THE LIFE AND TIMES OF HANNAH CRAFTS (Ecco/HarperCollins), winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Award, the American Book Award, and the Phi Beta Kappa Christian Gauss Award. Named one of the “10 Best Books of 2023” by The Washington Post, LIFE AND TIMES was also a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, the PEN/Jaqueline Bograd Weld Award, and Honorable Mention for the MLA's William Sanders Scarborough Prize. Currently, Hecimovich is completing THE COLUMBIA SEVEN (forthcoming, Simon & Schuster).

He is a 2025 Cullman Fellow at the New York Public Library and a 2025 Guggenheim Fellowship recipient. His work has been supported by The Hutchins Center at Harvard University, The National Endowment for the Humanities, and The National Humanities Center.

He lives in New York City and Chapel Hill, North Carolina with his partner, Christy Geiger, and their two children, Soren and Elsie Hecimovich.

Education

  • Ph.D., Vanderbilt University
  • M.A., Vanderbilt University
  • B.A., University of North Carolina—Chapel Hill

Honors & Awards

Fellowships and Honors:

  • Hutchins Family Fellowship, W. E. B. Du Bois Institute at The Hutchins Center for African and African American Research, Harvard University (2023-2024) [Residency Fellowship].
  • The Duke Endowment Fellowship, The National Humanities Center (2022-2023) [Residency Fellowship].
  • Public Scholar Fellowship, The National Endowment for the Humanities, Washington, DC ($50,000) (2015-2016).
  • Josephus Daniels Fellowship, The National Humanities Center (2015-2016) [Residency Fellowship].
  • Shelia Biddle Ford Fellowship, W. E. B. Du Bois Institute at The Hutchins Center for African and African American Research, Harvard University (2014-2015) [Residency Fellowship].

Teaching Awards:

  • Max Ray Joyner Award for Faculty Service Through Continuing Education, East Carolina University, 2008. University-wide competitive honor awarded annually to one faculty member to recognize “excellence in the delivery of courses offered through Continuing Studies, face-to-face and/or distance education.”
  • UNC Board of Governors Distinguished Professor for Teaching Award, East Carolina University, 2006. University-wide competitive award bestowed by the UNC Board of Governors.
  • Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs Scholar-Teacher Award, East Carolina University, 2006. College-wide competitive award bestowed by the Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs.
  • Department of English, Bertie Fearing Excellence in Teaching Award, East Carolina University, 2005.
  • Dean’s Award for Graduate Student Teacher of the Year in the College of Arts and Sciences, Vanderbilt University, 1997.
  • T. D. Young Teaching Award for Distinguished Teaching by a Graduate Student in the Department of English, Vanderbilt University, 1997.

Research Interests

  • Biography
  • African American literature and history
  • Nineteenth century literature

Representative Publications

Books:

  • The Life and Times of Hannah Crafts: The True Story of The Bondwoman’s Narrative. Ecco/HarperCollins (October 2023). Kindle and Audible editions, 2023. Paperback edition, 2024. 432 pages.
  • Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles: A Reader’s Guide. London and New York: Continuum, 2010. Paperback edition, 2010. 157 pages.
  • Austen’s Emma: A Reader’s Guide. London and New York: Continuum, 2009. Paperback edition, 2008. Kindle edition, 2009. 119 pages.
  • Puzzling the Reader: Riddles in Nineteenth-Century British Literature. New York: Peter Lang, 2008. 136 pages.

Edited Volumes:

  • “The Bondwoman’s Narrative by Hannah Crafts: A Fugitive Slave Recently escaped from North Carolina. Edited by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. with a New Introduction and Notes by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Gregg Hecimovich. New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2014. 381 pages.
  • Anthony Trollope’s Phineas Redux, Penguin Classics Edition, Edited with Notes and Introduction by Gregg Hecimovich, London and New York: Penguin Books, 2003. Kindle edition, 2003. 656 pages.

Representative Articles and Chapters in Edited Volumes:

  • “The Life and Times of Alfred, Delia, Drana, Fassena, Jack, Jem, and Renty,” in To Make Their Way in the World: The Peabody Museum’s Daguerreotypes, Edited by Ilisa Barbash, Molly Rogers, and Deborah Willis, Peabody Museum Press/Aperture (September, 2020). 72 pages.
  • “Searching for Hannah Crafts in Eastern North Carolina,” North Carolina Literary Review 16 (2007) 43-54.
  • “‘Just the thing for the time’: Contextualizing Religion in Browning’s ‘The Bishop Orders His Tomb,’” Victorian Poetry 36.3 (1998) (Published 1999) 889-904.
  • “The Cup and the Lip and the Riddle of Our Mutual Friend,” ELH 62 (1995) 955-977

Additional Professional Activities

In Summer 2023, Dr. Gregg Hecimovich is co-directing a Level I Higher Education Summer Institute with a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities:

“Reconstructing the Black Archive: South Carolina as Case Study, 1739-1895,” National Endowment for the Humanities, Level I Summer Institute for College and University Teachers, Co-Director with Susanna Ashton and Rhondda R. Thomas (Clemson University) and Kaniqua Robinson (Furman University) ($198,317), Clemson, Charleston, and Greenville, South Carolina, Summer 2023.

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