Higonnet was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, and came from an academic family – her mother a librarian and her father a professor.
The family lived one year in Vienna, an occupied city where the impact of World War II was very visible.
Higonnet began her teaching career as in Instructor at the department of English at George Washington University in 1967.
[1] Higonnet started teaching English and comparative literature at the University of Connecticut in 1970.
Higonnet has held fellowships from the Radcliffe Institute, the Rutgers Center for Historical Analysis, the Rockefeller Foundation, Instituto Juan March, the Fulbright Scholar Program and the DAAD.