Dr. Vanessa Evans joined the Appalachian State English Department in the Fall of 2023 as a tenure track professor in literary studies. Vanessa lived in bigger cities her whole life but was drawn to Boone because of the Appalachian culture. In our interview, she highlighted that Boone was special in how college life, tourism, and culture all intersect. She enjoys that she has access to different outdoor activities year-round here in Boone, and you can frequently find Vanessa running and listening to audiobooks at Moses Cone. When Vanessa is not outdoors, she enjoys getting her stories by playing video games or watching television.
Vanessa obtained her PhD from York University in Toronto, Canada. Her dissertation is a comparative literature project that looks at contemporary indigenous novels from the North American region and the Oceanic region. Ultimately, Vanessa is interested in destabilizing what we think about indigeneity. Growing up in a predominantly white, conservative area made her want to better understand the world around her. She had questions of how we got here and why. She further explained that the indigenous writers really helped answer her questions and understand her reality. As she continued her studies, she gained the knowledge not taught to her at the time on how to talk about indigenous literature.
Vanessa is currently working on a monograph that is an extension of her dissertation research. Her monograph takes a deeper look into how Euro-American stories and novels have obscured indigenous presence. Emphasizing that Indigenous people have lived here for a long time and will continue to, and finding ways to preserve and acknowledge their presence in the world.
Vanessa is currently teaching a master’s seminar about world literature called Imaginary Maps that encourages students to move past Euro-American mapping and look at how Indigenous literature and post-colonial literature does a different sort of mapping. She is also teaching two sections of 2130 Ethnic American literature from the perspective of indigenous storytelling. Her favorite teaching moment so far has been watching one of her graduate students get accepted into a PhD program. Vanessa enjoys the diversity of knowledge students bring to the classroom. The students are really engaged in the material and have gained information through other sectors of their lives, like in video games or television shows. She loves the collaborative work in the classroom and tries to decenter herself to give the students the opportunity to show what they know.
Written by Jacey Widner
Dr. Vanessa Evans
Dr. Vanessa Evans