Dean of the Westover Honors Program
434.544.8828
savage@lynchburg.edu
Biography: Dr. Beth Savage served as assistant director of Westover Honors for five years before she was named dean in 2020. Before coming to Westover, she taught in the English department and served as director of the gender studies program.
Savage has a bachelor’s degree in English literature, with a minor in philosophy, from Agnes Scott College. She earned a PhD in English literature, with major fields in gender theory and 18th-century drama, from the University of Illinois.
In 2014, she was awarded an internationally competitive Chawton House Fellowship, which allowed her to live and study at the Chawton House archives in Alton, England. She returned to Alton to present her research in July 2015, and a portion of that research was published in the journal Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Theatre Research.
In addition to writing about pedagogy, Savage has published academic articles on 18th-century celebrity and imitation, representations of mothers in drama, and masculinity and cross-dressing in 18th-century erotica.
Her research informs her teaching, which often addresses provocative and nontraditional subject matter. An example of this was her Fall 2016 colloquium, “Icons of Excess: Three Centuries of Celebrity Culture.”
In addition to reading film theory and postmodern theories of consumer culture and identity, and talking about stars from Sarah Siddons to Beyonce, students learned outside of the classroom. In Knight-Capron Library’s rare book room, they explored the University’s vast collection of rare books and discussed literary celebrity.
Farther from home, at Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., they attended a lecture by a prominent theater critic whose work they had read; visited an exhibit on Shakespeare, Jane Austen, and celebrity; and saw a stage adaptation of Austen’s novel “Sense and Sensibility.”
Some students further pursued their interest in Austen on a Spring 2018 study abroad trip to the author’s home and other locations that inhabit her novels.
During her time at Westover, Savage has been inspired by the passion and energy of her students, as well as their dedication to intellectual inquiry and growth. She is grateful to be a part of this close-knit, engaged community.
Education
- PhD, English Literature — University of Illinois
- MA — University of Illinois
- BA, English Literature; Minor, Philosophy — Agnes Scott College
