“Dolly Parton for President?”: A Writing Course

A Duke writing instructor reflects on how her students have expressed gratitude for learning about Parton

A photo of Dolly Parton against an illustration of butterflies

The following is a summary of an essay on Trinity College of Arts & Sciences.

In the days after Dolly Parton’s death was announced, Leslie Maxwell, lecturing fellow in Duke University’s Writing and Rhetoric Program, received messages from friends and family mourning the loss: “Noooo, Dolly,” and “I thought she’d live forever!” What surprised Maxwell was hearing from students, too.

In this personal essay, Maxwell reflects on her five-year experience teaching the Duke writing course, “Dolly Parton for President?,” which invited students to examine Parton’s music, business career, and ability to transcend political and cultural divisions. Some students grew up with Parton’s songs and Imagination Library books; others were familiar with only her rhinestone-studded persona or from the film “9 to 5,” where she fights a misogynistic boss.

By semester’s end, all encounter the many ‘Dollys’: the Appalachian daughter, songwriter, fashion icon, and fiercely independent woman who made room for contradiction.

Maxwell describes how Parton’s apparent simplicity makes her compelling to study. In the popular song “I Will Always Love You,” just twenty lines trace an entire relationship — in all its tenderness, pain and imagined future. It’s a “reminder that life can be painful and harrowing and beautiful and joyful, all at the same time,” writes Maxwell.

Students’ messages to Maxwell have expressed both gratitude for Parton’s life and appreciation for having explored it together. Beneath their words was another message: “I see you, and you see me.” Maxwell writes: “I believe this is how Parton greeted the world — as a complicated but mostly good place, filled with complicated but mostly good people. In 2026 America, this view feels radical.”

Read Maxwell’s full essay on Trinity College of Arts & Sciences.