Kelly L. Watson
Dr. Watson serves as the Director the Center for Women’s and Gender
Studies at WVU. She was the Assistant Director of the Center from 2020-2024. She received her PhD in American Culture Studies, along with graduate
certificates in Women’s Studies and Ethnic Studies from Bowling Green State University.
She previously served as Associate Professor of History at Avila University in
Kansas City, MO as well as Visiting Assistant Professor of History and Women’s
and Gender Studies at Saint Mary’s College in Notre Dame, IN. At Avila, Dr. Watson
also served as the Director of Study Abroad Programs and as a governing member
of the program in Women’s and Gender Studies. She was instrumental in establishing
Avila University’s first ever Honors Program and was slated to be its inaugural
Director before coming to WVU. In addition to courses in theories and practices
of women’s and gender studies, Dr. Watson has taught many courses, including those
focused on women’s history, the history of sex and sexuality, slavery and the slave
trade, imperialism and conquest in North America, and Native American studies.
Learn more at
http://kellylwatson.com
Dr. Watson uses she/her pronouns.
RESEARCH AREAS
Dr. Watson’s research has covered a seemingly wide range of disparate topics: from the power of accusations of cannibalism in the early modern Atlantic world to more recent research about sex and Native American diplomacy in the Chesapeake. What unites these topics is her abiding interest in the histories of colonialism, race, sex, and sexuality, particularly in zones of contact between Indigenous peoples and European imperialists. She is currently working on her second book which will focus on the intertwined histories of sexual abuse, cannibalism, and colonialism in the life and works of Nobel Prize-winning scientist D. Carlton Gajdusek.
SELECTED PROFESSIONAL ACCOMPLISHMENTS
"'Ourselves Writ savage': Disease, Desire, and Colonialism in Kuru Country," Terrae Incognitae, special issue on "Disease and Exploration" (2024).
“Mary Kittamaquund Brent, ‘the Pocahontas of Maryland:’ Sex, Marriage and Diplomacy in the 17th century Chesapeake,” Early American Studies (Winter 2021).
“Sex and Cannibalism: The Politics of Carnal Relations between Europeans and American ‘Anthropophagites.’” In To Feast on Us as Their Prey: Cannibalism in the Early Modern Atlantic edited by Rachel Herrmann. University of Arkansas Press, 2019. 2020 Edited Volume Winner, Association for the Study of Food and Society Book Award.
Insatiable Appetites: Imperial Encounters with Cannibals in the North Atlantic World, New York University Press. Early American Places series (2015, paperback 2017).
COURSES TAUGHT AT WVU
WGST 170: Introduction to Women's and Gender Studies
WGST 200: Feminist Histories and Practices
WGST 460: Men and Masculinities
WGST 448: Sexuality in American Culture
WGST 484: Senior Capstone
WGST 696: Seminar in WGST
WGST 790: Graduate Teaching Practicum