Elizabeth Sagaser

Elizabeth Sagaser is an Associate Professor in the Department of English at Colby College. Her academic work bridges poetry, cognitive literary studies, ecopoetics, and early modern literature, examining how poetic forms engage with mortality, cognition, and environmental interconnection.

• Ph.D. from Brandeis University
• B.A. from Brown University

Her research focuses on intersections of literature with cognitive science, ecocriticism, and historical poetics. She has published extensively on Shakespeare, Milton, and Emily Dickinson, analyzing how poetic structures shape emotional and intellectual responses. Her recent projects explore Dickinson’s engagement with Shakespeare and ecological frameworks for understanding human embodiment.

Her publications span topics like Renaissance elegiac intimacy, carpe diem motifs, and pedagogical approaches to meter and form. Articles reflect a consistent interest in cognitive and affective dimensions of poetry from the 16th to 19th centuries.

She teaches courses including “Poetry and Cognition,” “Dickinson and Poetry Across Centuries,” and “Seventeenth-century Literature and the Natural World,” emphasizing experiential learning and interdisciplinary analysis.