Faculty & Staff
Beaver / Arnold / Ballard / Boye / Boyer / Carp / Conway / den Biggelaar / Goff / Haney / Hay / Keefe / McGowan / Nash / O'Quinn / Ostwalt / Sanders / Silver / Smith / Specht / Stewart / Walker / Watkins / Whyte / Williams / Bauer
Center Director:
Patricia D. Beaver (Ph.D. 1976, Duke University) Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Center for Appalachian Studies at Appalachian State University. She has conducted research in Appalachia and China, with particular interests in community, family, and public policy as well as issues related to gender, class, and ethnicity. She has taught courses in the Anthropology Department, many of which overlap with Appalachian Studies, Asian Studies and Women's Studies. She was project director of the Appalachian Land Ownership Study (discussed in Who Owns Appalachia, University Press of Kentucky 1983), co-editor with Burton Purrington of Cultural Adaptions to Mountain Environments (University of Georgia Press, 1984), author of Rural Community in the Appalachian South (Waveland, 1996), co-editor with Carol Hill of Cultural Diversity in the US South (forthcoming 1998, University of Georgia Press). Her recent research focuses on cultural and ethnic diversity in Appalachia, with attention to the African American and Jewish communities in Asheville, N.C., on Melungeon history and identity, and on rehistoricizing gender and ethnicity. Curriculum Vitae
Program Director:
Katherine E. Ledford (Ph.D., University of Kentucky) Center for Appalachian Studies Program Director and Lecturer of Appalachian Studies. Dr. Ledford has developed an on-line introductory Appalachian Studies course and is in the process of developing an on-line graduate certificate program. She has taken the lead in recruiting students for our new undergraduate BA degree and will be advising both undergraduate and graduate students in the program. Curriculum Vitae
Faculty Associates:
Edwin T. Arnold (Ph.D., University of South Carolina) Former Center for Appalachian Studies Program Director and Professor of English. Former associate editor of the Appalachian Journal and co-editor with J.W. Williamson of Interviewing Appalachia: The Appalachian Journal Interviews, 1978-1992. Among his other books are Conversations with Erskine Caldwell, Perspectives on Cormac McCarthy, Reading Faulkner: Sanctuary, and A Cormac McCarthy Reader: The Border Trilogy. He is also editor of special issues of The Southern Quarterly on "Southern Head Trips: The South and the Sixties Counterculture" and an issue devoted to Ozark writer Donald Harington. Curriculum Vitae
Click the following link to see a review of Dr. Arnold's new book, What Virtue There is in Fire:
http://www.citizen-times.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/200906140015/LIVING/906140308
Sandra L. Ballard (Ph.D., University of Tennessee), Professor of English and Editor, Appalachian Journal -- an interdisciplinary, scholarly, quarterly publication documenting and exploring the history, politics, economics, culture, folklore, literature, music, and ecology of the Appalachian mountain region. Dr. Ballard is Professor of English at Appalachian State University, where she occasionally teaches a course in Appalachian literature. She is co-editor of the The Collected Short Stories of Harriette Simpson Arnow (Michigan State University Press). With Patricia Hudson, she co-edited the literary anthology Listen Here: Women Writing in Appalachia (University Press of Kentucky) and co-authored The Carolinas and Appalachian States in the Smithsonian Guide to Historic America series. Dr. Ballard is writing a biography of Harriette Simpson Arnow, arguably the best novelist from Southern Appalachia in the 20th century.
Gary Boye (Ph.D., Duke University 1995, M.S.L.S. University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill 2000) Assistant Professor and Music Librarian of the Erneston Music Library (http://www.library.appstate.edu/music) at Appalachian State University. He teaches the music bibliography course for graduate students in the Hayes School of Music, as well as courses in guitar literature and country music. Research interests include the Baroque guitar, including a dissertation, "Giovanni Battista Granata and the Development of Printed Guitar Music in Seventeenth-Century Italy" (Duke U., 1995) completed with the help of a Fulbright Scholarship for a year of research in Italy. Other research interests include country music, bluegrass music, and the five-string banjo. Dr. Boye has articles published in the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (London: Macmillan, 2001), the Journal of Seventeenth-Century Music , North Carolina Libraries, Lute Society Quarterly, as well as several other publications and Web pages. He plays classical and steel-string guitars, Baroque guitar, five-string banjo, lute, and other plucked-string instruments.
Jefferson C. Boyer (Ph.D., University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill) Associate Professor of Anthropology. Scholarly interests include Latin America and Appalachian sustainable development. www.anthro.appstate.edu/faculty.htm
Sarah Carmichael (PhD in Earth and Planetary Sciences at Johns Hopkins University) Assistant Professor of Geology.
Jana Carp (Ph.D., University of Illinois at Chicago) Adjunct Assistant Professor of Geography and Planning. Dr. Carp's interest in planning education and research is motivated by a deep concern to understand the social dimensions of ecological restoration initiatives in urban contexts. Using a Lefebvrian-based method for analyzing the social production of space, Jana studies community-initiated collaboration, with particular attention to the creativity of non-experts, the role of civic science, and the application of ecological science concepts to human communities (e.g., resilience, adaptation, diversity). Dr. Carp teaches Town, City and Regional Planning; Land use Regulations; Project Management, Planning for Sustainable Communities; Community Development; Principles of Social Space Analysis in Downtown Planning.
Cecelia Conway (Ph.D., University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill) Professor of English and Folklore. Her scholarly interests include the banjo, fiddle and other music traditions, women and literature in the South and Appalachian literature. Dr. Conway recently published African Banjo Echos in Appalachia (1995, University of Tennessee Press) and co-produced the Smithsonian CD, Black Banjo Songsters of NC and VA. Atlantic Monthly considered her book a "landmark study" and the CD a "rare collection" of music. She is currently working on a second CD, Black Banjo Songsters of the Blue Ridge, for Smithsonian Folkways.
Christoffel den Biggelaar (Ph.D., Michigan State University) Associate Professor of Sustainable Development. Dr. den Biggelaar came to the U.S. in the Fall of 1987 to start a Master's program in extension education at Michigan State University after having spent 6 years in Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso), the (then) People's Republic of the Congo and the Central African Republic as an agricultural teacher and extension agronomist. He joined the Interdisciplinary Studies faculty at Appalachian State University in August 2000. In the Sustainable Development Program he teaches courses in agroecology (lecture and lab) and sustainable development. His areas of expertise include endogenous knowledge systems, farmer experimental practices and knowledge generation processes in agroforestry systems, participatory (RRA/PRA) and survey research methods, and qualitative and quantitative data analysis.
James Goff (Ph.D., University of Arkansas) Professor of History. Dr. Goff is the Department of History's Graduate Program advisor and he teaches History of the New South and American Religious History.
David Haney (Ph.D., State University of New York at Buffalo) Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education and Professor, Department of English. Dr. Haney has been a bluegrass performer since 1976, playing guitar and mandolin and singing lead and tenor. He recorded two albums on Rounder Records with Joe Val and the New England Bluegrass Boys in the 1980s, and he has recently recorded with Lisa Baldwin and with the Dirt Road bluegrass band. He has contributed articles to Bluegrass Unlimited and other music periodicals. He has also written two books and numerous articles on British Romantic poetry.
Fred J. Hay (Ph. D. 1985, University of Florida, M.L.I.S 1987, Florida State University) Professor and Librarian of the W.L. Eury Appalachian Collection at Appalachian State University. He teaches one of the required courses for the Appalachian Studies program, AS 5000, Bibliography and Research. Dr. Hay's publications include African American Community Community Studies From North America (1989), "Goin' Back to Sweet Memphis": Conversations with the Blues (2001), and "From Activist to Academic: An Evolutionary Model for the Bibliography of Appalachian Studies" ( Journal of Appalachian Studies , 1997). Hay edited When Night Falls, Kric! Krac!: Haitian Folktales (1999), three issues of the Black Music Research Journal (2005) devoted to Appalachia, and co-edited Documenting Cultural Diversity in the Resurgent American South (1997) which was awarded the American Folklore Society's Brenda McCallum Memorial Prize.His scholarly interests include African Appalachia, ethnography, documentation and bibliography, and folklore.
Susan E. Keefe (Ph.D. University of California, Santa Barbara) Professor of Anthropology. She has taught "Appalachian Culture," "Qualitative Methods," and "Ethnographic Field School" in the Appalachian Studies program. She also regularly supervises internships for graduate and undergraduate students in the Appalachian region. She serves on the Graduate Program Advisory Committee for the Center for Appalachian Studies and the Sustainable Development Program. She recently served on the Steering Committee of the Appalachian Studies Association and was the 1998 Conference Program Chair. In 1998 she also served as President of the Southern Anthropology Society. Her research interests include ethnicity, social organization and medical and applied anthropology. She edited Appalachian Mental Health (University of Kentucky Press, 1988) and is currently editing another volume tentatively titled Culturally-Relevant Practice in Appalachia.
Thomas A. McGowan (Ph.D., University of Virginia) Professor of English. He has received the Trustees' Award for Excellence in Teaching and was designated Outstanding Teacher of the College of Arts and Sciences in 1996. His research interests include regional folklife and oral narrative. He served as editor of the North Carolina Folklore Journal for twenty years and also as associate editor of the Appalachian Journal. The North Carolina Folklore Society has presented him its Brown-Hudson Folklore Award and, in 2001, named its service award after him. He has edited Assessing Appalachian Studies; Wiseman's View: The Autobiography of Skyland Scotty Wiseman; and A Treasury of Tar Heel Folk Artists: The North Carolina Folk Heritage Award 1989-1996. He is the co-producer of the compact disc/cassette tape Orville Hicks: Mule Egg Seller and Appalachian Storyteller, which received the Paul Green Media Award of the N.C. Society of Historians. McGowan is also a speaker in the N.C. Humanities Council's Humanities Forum.
Bradley Nash, Jr. (Ph.D., Virginia Tech), Assistant Professor of Sociology. Dr. Nash specializes in Sociological Theory, Political Sociology, Work and Organizations, History of Social Thought and Labor Unions.
Elaine O'Quinn (Ph.D. Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University), Associate Professor of English. Academic Specialties: Adolescent Literature, Teaching of Composition: Theory and Pedagogy, Issues in English Studies, Ethnographic Research. Dr. O'Quinn joined the Dept. of English in 1999. She is co-director of the BS in English Education program. She is also a member of the Women Studies faculty. Her courses address the complex issues of teaching English in American society. Dr. O'Quinn's research interests include critical literacy, the sociopolitical dynamics of reading and writing, gender in the English classroom, and democracy and literacy. She is the author of numerous reviews, articles, and book chapters and has presented at national conferences. Dr. O'Quinn is a member of the Academy of Outstanding Teachers in Arts and Sciences at ASU and has also received the Arts and Sciences Award for Outstanding Advisor.
Conrad Ostwalt (Ph.D., Duke University, 1987) Chairperson and Professor of Philosophy and Religion. His publications include "Love Valley: An American Utopia," Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1998. "Witches and Jesus: Lee Smith's Appalachian Religious Consciousness," forthcoming, "The Salem School: White Missionaries/Black School" in Appalachian Journal, and "Crossing of Cultures: The Mennonite Brethren of Boone, N.C. " in the Journal of the Appalachian Studies Association. His scholarly interests include American and Appalachian religious traditions. He teaches P&R 5400, Religion in Appalachia.
Lynn Moss Sanders (Ph.D., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) Professor of English. Academic Specialty: Folklore, American Literature. Lynn Moss Sanders has taught in the English department at ASU since 1987. She is the former Coordinator of the Heltzer Honors Program.
Timothy H. Silver (Ph.D., College of William and Mary) Professor of History. Dr. Silver teaches Environmental and Colonial American History.
Chuck Smith (ABD, Virginia Tech) Director of Sustainable Development, Lecturer. Chuck Smith received both his Masters and Bachelor of Science degrees from Appalachian State University. His MA is in Industrial Technology with concentrations in Appropriate Technology and History, and his BS is in History. His interests are varied and interdisciplinary including environmental history, philosophy of history and nature, the sociology of modern environmentalism, and the interrelationships of science, technology and society. He has taught courses in Society and Technology, Philosophy of Science, Western and American Intellectual and Social History, Sustainable Development and various special topics.
Neva J. Specht (Ph.D., University of Delaware) Associate Professor of History. Dr. Specht teaches History of Early Republic, Material Culture and Public History.
Bruce E. Stewart (Ph.D. University of Georgia) Assistant Professor of History. Dr. Stewart teaches U.S. and Appalachian History and Appalachian Studies' Sophomore Honors Colloquium.
Gary L. Walker (Ph.D., University of Tennessee, Knoxville) Professor of Biology. Dr. Walker is the Graduate Program Director for the Department of Biology. Dr. Walker's research interests are in two areas of plant ecology. Most of his laboratory-based research has been in the area of plant population genetics. The population genetics of rare, restricted and disjunct plant species in the southern Appalachians has been a field of investigation that has interested him for many years.
Charles Alan Watkins (Ph.D., University of Delaware 1982) is the Director of the Appalachian Cultural Museum and Adjunct Associate Professor of History. he has published articles in various publications including Curator, Appalachian Journal, and Now and Then. His scholarly interests include material culture, art history and photography.
Thomas R. Whyte (Ph. D., University of Tennessee, 1988) Associate Professor of Anthropology. His scholarly interests include prehistory of the Southern Appalachian Region and public archaeology. He has many publications in such journals as Southeastern Archaeology and Journal of Middle Atlantic Archaeology along with many technical reports. He was also involved in The Time Tunnel: A Living History of Human Prehistory.
Wayne Williams ( Ph.D., Texas A&M University) Professor of Health, Leisure and Exercise Science. Dr. Williams teaching specialties are Recreation Management, Planning and Design, Interpretation, and Natural Resource Management. His professional affiliations include the National Association for Interpretation, North Carolina Recreation & Park Society and the Association for Living History, Farms & Agricultural Museums.
Staff:
Deborah Wiseman Bauer (B.A. English, minor Geology, 2005, Appalachian State University), Administrative Assistant. Debbie lives in Vilas with her husband Michael. In their spare time they are building a new home. Debbie loves to cook, dabble in pottery and watercolors, read, and garden.
