Vita
EDUCATION
Ph.D. in English, The Ohio State University
Dissertation: “Reading Tourist Sites, Citing Touristic Readings: Anglo Constructions
of Native American Identity and the Case of Tecumseh.”
AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION
Folklore, 20th-Century American Literature, Young-Adult Literature, English
Education
|
WORK EXPERIENCE |
||
| Fall 2007-present | West Virginia University/Department of English | Professor
and Coordinator of English Education Associate Professor Assistant Professor |
| 1996-Spring 2007 | University of Northern Colorado/School of English Language & Literature | Undergraduate Director |
| Associate Professor | ||
| Assistant Professor | ||
| Lecturer | ||
| 1989-1996 | Ohio State University English Department | Teaching Associate, Research Assistant |
| 1995 | Ohio State University Folklore Archive | Archivist |
| 1992-1993 | Ohio State University Writing Center | Tutor |
| 1988-1989 | The Ohio Department of Education, Division of Research and Communications | Writer, Editor |
PUBLICATIONS
BOOK:
JURIED ARTICLES/BOOK CHAPTERS:
"Striking Signs: The Diverse Discourse of the 2018 West Virginia Teachers’ Strike." English Education 50.4 (July 2018): 365-374. Coauthored with Audra Slocum (first author) and Malayna Bernstein (third author).
"'Almost Folklore': The Legend that Killed Nella Larsen's Literary Career." Journal of American Folklore 130.517 (Summer 2017): 255-275.
"From Hillbilly to Frontiersman: The Changing Nature of the WVU Mountaineer."
West Virginia History 8.2 (Fall 2014): 15-45.
"Reading Art Spiegelman's Maus as Postmodern Ethnography." Journal of
Folklore Research 48.3 (2011): 249-267.
"A Powerful Pairing: The Literature Circle and the Wiki."
The ALAN Review 38.3 (Summer 2011): 14-22.
"'More Than Meets the Eye': Transformative Intertextuality in Gene Luen Yang's
American Born Chinese."
The ALAN Review
37.1 (Fall 2009): 41-47.
"'Painful Yet Precious Things': Material Culture in Ralph Ellison's
Invisible Man."
The Griot 28.1 (Spring 2009): 1-10.
"Native Geography: Richard Wright's Work for the Federal Writers' Project in Chicago."
African American Review 42.1 (Spring 2008): 91-108.
"The Signifyin(g) Detective: Barbara Neely's Blanche White, Undercover in Plain
Sight."
Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction
46.4 (Summer 2005): 320-332.
"'Life in the TV': The Visual Nature of 9/11 Lore and its Impact on Vernacular
Response."
Journal of Folklore Research 42.1 (2005): 33-56.
"The Unbearable Weight of Authenticity: Zora Neale Hurston's
Their Eyes Were Watching God and a Theory of 'Touristic Reading.'"
Journal of American Folklore 117.464 (Spring 2004): 168-190.
"Terror (?) At Tuttle Mall." With Larry Doyle.
FOAF Tale News: The Newsletter of the International Society for Contemporary Legend
Research 44 (May 1999).
"No Paradise to Be Lost: Deconstructing the Myth of 'Domestic Affection' in Mary
Shelley's
Frankenstein."
Trajectories of the Fantastic. New York: Greenwood Press, 1997.
"Praxis: The Necessity of Theory." (Part of a collection of articles on folklore
and multiculturalism in the elementary and secondary school classroom)
Folklore in Use 3.1 (1995).
SOLICITED ARTICLES ET AL.:
"Why We Knock on Wood." Post for The Conversation, 30 January 2020. https://theconversation.com/why-we-knock-on-wood-for-luck-129864
"Fifty Shades of Censorship, or How We Can Learn to Stop Worrying and Let Kids Read."
Blog post for the Nerdy Book Club, 29 September 2014.
http://nerdybookclub.wordpress.com/2014/09/29/fifty-shades-of-censorship-or-how-we-can-learn-to-stop-worrying-and-let-kids-read-by-rosemary-hathaway/
"Personal Experience Narratives." Entry for the Folkways section of the
Encyclopedia of the Great Plains. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 2004.
"Reflections on Folklife and Education: Folklore and the 'Culture of Fear.'" Editorial
in
Folklore and Education, the newsletter of the Folklore and Education Section
of the American Folklore Society. Spring 2003.
http://www.afsnet.org/sections/education/Spring2003/
"Folk Arts in Education: Public/Academic Sector Collaborations in Colorado from
K-College."
Folklore and Education, the newsletter of the Folklore and Education Section
of the American Folklore Society. Winter 2001.
REVIEWS:
Rev. of
Folklife, Vol. 14 of
The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, ed. Glenn Hinson and William Ferris
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009), in
West Virginia History
4.2 (Fall 2010).
Rev. of Whispers on the Color Line: Race and Rumor in America, by Gary Alan Fine and Patricia Turner. Journal of Folklore Research < http://www.indiana.edu/~jof/bndetail.php?version=&id=32>
Select conference presentations
"How and Why Archival Folklore Collections Matter: A Case Study of Carey Woofter’s Work in Calhoun County, West Virginia, in the 1930s." American Folklore Society Annual Meeting, Portland, OR, November 2023.
"Black Student Activists at West Virginia University in the 1960s/1970s: An Oral History Project." Appalachian Studies Association annual meeting, Morgantown, WV, March 2022.
"'We Can't Even Create a Group Text, and We're Taking on the NRA': Resisting Campus Carry in West Virginia." American Folklore Society annual meeting, Baltimore, MD, October 2019.
"'If You Can Read This, Thank a Media-Savvy Teacher': Signs from the 2018 West Virginia Teachers' Strike." American Folklore Society annual meeting, Buffalo, NY, October 2018.
"Resisting the Same Old Story: How the West Virginia Mountaineer Talks Back to Hillbilly Elegy." American Folklore Society annual meeting, Minneapolis, MN, October 2017.
"Legendary Personal Experience Narratives from a Vietnam-War Era Protest." International
Society for Contemporary Legend Study (ISCLR) conference, Tallinn, Estonia, July
2016.
Roundtable discussion of West Virginia novelist Mary Lee Settle. Appalachian Studies
Association annual meeting, Shepherdstown, WV, March 2016.
"Countering Resistance to Teaching 'The Local': Enacting Place-Based Pedagogy
with Preservice English Teachers." American Folklore Society annual meeting, Long
Beach, CA, October 2015.
"Death By Folklore: The Legend that Killed Nella Larsen's Literary Career." American Folklore Society annual meeting, Providence, RI, October 2013.
"Beyond Book Reviews and Blogs: Ways to Engage Content-Area Teachers with Young Adult
Literature." Co-presented with Charline Barnes-Rowland of the WVU College of Education.
National Council of Teachers of English annual convention, Las Vegas, NV, November
2012.
"The Thin Veneer of Civilization: Redefining West Virginia University’s
Mountaineer after WWII." American Folklore Society Conference, Bloomington, IN,
October 2011.
"'The Little Mermaid' in Harlem: Reading Nella Larsen's Quicksand as Fairy-Tale Revision.” American Folklore Society Conference, Nashville, TN, October 2010.
"Of Mice and Fieldworkers: Using Art Spiegelman's Maus to Teach Ethnography." American
Folklore Society Conference, Boise, ID, October 2009.
"'More Than Meets the Eye': Transformative Intertextuality in Gene Luen Yang's American
Born Chinese.” College English Association Conference, Pittsburgh, PA, March 2009.
"Unpublished 'Stuff': Richard Wright's Work for the Federal Writers' Project in
Chicago.” American Folklore Society Conference, Milwaukee, WI, October 2006.
"'Take Care of the Books': Material Culture in Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man."
American Folklore Society Conference, Atlanta, GA, October 2005.
Awards and honors
- Recipient of the Eberly College of Arts & Sciences' Outstanding Teaching Award, 2015
- Recipient of the WVU chapter of Sigma Tau Delta’s Outstanding Teacher award, 2013 and 2019
- Recipient of the WVU English Department’s Philip Bordinat Award for Outstanding Scholarly Achievement, 2012 (for “Reading Art Spiegelman’s Maus as Postmodern Ethnography”)
- Recipient of the University of Northern Colorado’s university-wide award for Academic Excellence In Undergraduate Education, 2003
- Recipient of the UNC College of Arts and Sciences’ Teaching Excellence Award, 2002-2003