Professor Mark Freeman received his B.A., in Psychology, from the State University of New York at Binghamton (now Binghamton University) in 1977 and his Ph.D., in Human Development, from The University of Chicago in 1986. A member of the Holy Cross faculty since 1986, he served as Assistant Dean of the College from 1992-1996 and Associate Dean of the College from 1995-2000. He is currently Dean of the Class of 2011and Professor of Psychology.

Professor Freeman’s teaching and research interests include history and philosophy of psychology, the psychology of the self, narrative psychology, and the psychology of art and creativity. Most recently, he has sought to extend his work in narrative psychology by addressing both the aesthetic and ethical dimensions of narrative, particularly in the context of autobiography. He has also sought to complement his longstanding interest in the self with an in-depth exploration of the category, and place, of the Other in psychological life.

His first book, Rewriting the Self: History, Memory, Narrative (Routledge, 1993), received the Alpha Sigma Nu (Jesuit Honor Society) National Book Award in 1994. This book inquires into the process by which people reinterpret and reconstruct the meaning and significance of past experience by drawing on the autobiographies of such notable figures as St. Augustine, Helen Keller, and Philip Roth.

A second book, Finding the Muse: A Sociopsychological Inquiry into the Conditions of Artistic Creativity (Cambridge, 1993), was designated an Outstanding Academic Book by Choice magazine in 1995. Finding the Muse explores the lives of a group of aspiring American artists, focusing especially on problems of creativity as they relate to such issues as the mystique of the modern artist, the place of the art market in fashioning artistic identity, and the limits and possibilities of modern art itself.

Professor Freeman has also written numerous articles and reviews for a wide variety of scholarly books and journals. He is currently at work on two book projects, the first of which is titled Hindsight: The Promise and Peril of Narrative, and The Priority of the Other: Finding Good in a Difficult Life.