Lucy Freibert

Lucy Marie Freibert SCN (October 19, 1922 – August 11, 2016) was an American educator, women's studies scholar, and activist, and a Sister of Charity of Nazareth. She taught at the University of Louisville from 1971 to 1993.

Early life and education Freibert was born in Louisville, Kentucky, the daughter of Joseph Anthony Freibert and Amelia J. Stich Freibert. Both of her parents were also Kentucky natives. She graduated from Spalding College in 1957 with a bachelor's degree in English. She earned a master's degree from Saint Louis University in 1962, and completed doctoral studies at the University of Wisconsin in 1970.

Career Freibert joined the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth in 1945. She taught at Catholic schools in Louisville beginning in 1947, and at Spalding College into the 1960s. In 1971, she joined the faculty of the University of Louisville, and taught American literature and women's studies courses there until her retirement in 1993. Writer Esther Conwill Majozo cited Freibert as an important influence, and writer bell hooks dedicated a 2006 Louisville speech to Freibert, saying "Lucy is a goddess."

Freibert received the university's Distinguished Teaching Award (1987), the Trustees Award (1991), a Lifetime Community Service Award (2001), and the Mary K. Bonsteel Tachua Gender Equity Award (2004). Her library of over a thousand books was dedicated in 2008 as the Lucy M. Freibert Collection at the University of Louisville. and Brook Farm. "The Artist as Picaro: The Revelation of Margaret Atwood’s Lady Oracle" (1982, Canadian Literature) "World Views in Utopian Novels by Women" (1983, The Journal of Popular Culture) "'Weeds and Wildings': Melville's Use of the Pastoral Voice" (1983, Essays in Arts and Sciences) Hidden Hands: An Anthology of American Women Writers, 1790-1870 (1985, co-editor with Barbara Ann White) "Southern Song: An Interview with Margaret Walker" (1987, Frontiers) "Control and Creativity: The Politics of Risk in Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale" (1988) "Creative Women of Brook Farm" (1993)

Personal life Freibert died in 2016, at the age of 93, in Nazareth, Kentucky.