About the Author

Martin Bickman, Professor of English at the University of Colorado, Boulder, was educated at Amherst College, the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and the University of Pennsylvania. Throughout his career he has been active at all levels of education, from reading classes in Boston's inner city to high school in rural Kentucky. At his home institution, he has received the Boulder Faculty Assembly Teaching Award, the Faculty Teaching Fellowship, and a lifetime appointment as President's Teaching Scholar. He is the author of American Romantic Psychology and Walden: Volatile Truths, as well as editor of Approaches to Teaching Herman Melville's Moby Dick and Uncommon Learning: Thoreau on Education. He lives in Boulder with his wife, Louise, a clinical psychologist. They have two children, Sarah and Jed.