The West Virginia University Humanities Center is pleased to announce the establishment of the Humanities Center Advisory Board and welcome its initial members. The new advisory board will provide oversight, guide establishment of goals and support the Center’s mission to grow a united and thriving humanities community at WVU.
The advisory board’s initial members consist of a mix of disciplinary expertise with a shared, deep commitment to the importance of the humanities and a devotion to the mission and vision of the Center.
The Humanities Center officially welcomes its new board members. They include:
Erin Brock Carlson, Assistant Professor
Department of English, Eberly College of Arts and Sciences
Erin Brock Carlson is an assistant professor in the Department of English who teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in professional, technical and multimedia writing, as well as digital humanities and accompanying research methods. Her research centers the relationships between place, technology and power, focusing on how communities work together to address complex public problems through communication and community organizing. She uses community-based and participatory approaches in her research.
Rose Casey, Assistant Professor
Department of English, Eberly College of Arts and Sciences
Rose Casey specializes in contemporary Anglophone literature, law and literature and the relationship between politics and aesthetics. She teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on Anglophone literature, including postcolonial literature, British women writers, African literature, forced migration, the construct of the human and the contemporary novel. Casey also puts her research and teaching interests into practice through community engagement, including her involvement in setting up the Morgantown chapter of NOW (National Organization for Women) and serving as the chapter's president for much of its inaugural year.
Joseph Jones, Assistant Professor
Reed School of Media and Communications, College of Creative Arts and Media
Joseph Jones is an assistant professor at the Reed School of Media and Communications who has expertise in media history and culture and teaches media ethics and law. Taking the historical long view and using a variety of critical/cultural approaches, he investigates media and the creation of meaning in everyday life using a variety of critical and cultural approaches to engage in both empirical analysis and theory building. Jones’ research often engages the intersections of race, gender, class and environmental consciousness.
Sean Lawrence, Assistant Professor
Department of History, Eberly College of Arts and Sciences
Sean Lawrence is a historian of modern Germany with research interests in empire, colonialism, environmental history, political economy and interactions between Europe and the middle east. He works with sources in German, French, Turkish, Ottoman Turkish and Arabic and takes a multi-regional approach to historical questions.
Megan Leight, Teaching Assistant Professor
School of Art and Design, College of Creative Arts and Media
Megan Leight teaches courses in the visual arts of the Pre-Columbian Americas, Greek and Roman art and architecture and early European art history. She also offers global survey courses incorporating artistic practices of Oceania, North America, Asia and Africa, increasing student exposure to diverse cultures and contemporary issues. Her experiences in the arts and humanities led to her work as a field archaeologist with a mission dedicated to heritage preservation and community development. Her academic background in the social sciences informs her pedagogy, teaching the history of art from a variety of cultural perspectives and incorporating experiences with art, preservation and collections management into the classroom.