Department Info - Faculty

Martha Ackmann

 

Martha Ackmann
Campus Office: 313 Shattuck Hall
Office Telephone: (413) 538-2564
FAX: (413) 538-2082
mackmann@mtholyoke.edu
faculty profile
Website: www.marthaackmann.com

 

 

A prominent feminist voice in the media, Martha Ackmann has been featured on the Today show, CNN, ABC, NPR, the BBC and many other radio and television outlets. Her columns, op-eds and articles on women’s heath, national politics and science have been published in over 50 publications including The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune. Ackmann is also a commentator for National Public Radio.

Ackmann’s book, The Mercury 13: The True Story of Thirteen Women and the Dream of Space Flight (Random House), tells the story of U.S. women pilots who were secretly tested to be astronauts in the early days of the space program. Time magazine called it “a revealing snapshot of a country simultaneously caught up in the romance of the future and the prejudice of the past.”

In addition to her public writing, Ackmann is also scholar of Emily Dickinson and every fall teaches a popular seminar on the poet in the Dickinson Homestead in Amherst. The seminar was the first of its kind to be taught in the very house where Dickinson wrote her memorable poems. A member of the board of directors of the Emily Dickinson International Society, Ackmann has published articles on the poet in many scholarly journals as well as the San Francisco Chronicle, the Hartford Courant, and the Miami Herald.

Martha Ackmann is currently writing a new book on woman and baseball. The only day she ever skipped school was to attend the 1967 World Series. Born a St. Louis Cardinals fan, she has fallen hopelessly under the spell of the Boston Red Sox.

 

Courses Martha Ackmann Currently Teaches
&
What Students Say About Them

GS 119 Women's Public Voices

Women's Public Voices was an amazing experience focusing one some of the
most influential and empowering women in media today. I not only
studied the writing of these women, but I learned how to write like them and
with this knowledge was able to find my own voice.

Noel Emilius, MHC '09

GS 333 Emily Dickinson in Her Times

Nan Fischlein, MHC FP '05, found that the course tapped into "all aspects
of my liberal arts education." Fischlein's interest in Emily Dickinson and
museum studies paid off. She is now the program director of the Emily
Dickinson Museum in Amherst.