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Emily Satterwhite

Emily Satterwhite, Professor and Director of Appalachian Studies

Emily Satterwhite portrait
Emily Satterwhite, Professor and Director of Appalachian Studies

Department of Religion and Culture 
344 Lane Hall

280 Alumni Mall 
Blacksburg, VA 24061
540-231-8779 | esatter@vt.edu

Emily Satterwhite is an associate professor and the director of Appalachian Studies in the Department of Religion and Culture.  Her book Dear Appalachia: Readers, Identity, and Popular Fiction since 1878 (2011) won the Weatherford Award for best nonfiction about Appalachia and the Phi Beta Kappa Sturm Award honoring excellent work that is recognized as significant by a wider audience.

  • Appalachian studies
  • Reception/audience studies
  • Horror studies
  • Politics of culture
  • Public scholarship
  • Ph.D., Emory University Graduate Institute of the Liberal Arts
  • B.A., Transylvania University
  • Director, Appalachian Studies Program
  • Member, Appalachian Studies Association
  • Editorial Advisory Board, Place Matters series, UP of Kentucky
  • 2019 Environmental Educator of the Year, Blue Ridge Outdoors
  • 2018 Diggs Teaching Scholar Award, $500, team award with Dr. Rebecca Hester, Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning, Virginia Tech, awarded April 2018.
  • Sturm Award for Faculty Excellence in Research for Dear Appalachia (2011), Phi Beta Kappa Mu Chapter, Virginia Tech, 2013.
  • Weatherford Award for best non-fiction book of 2011, Appalachian Studies Association and Berea College Loyal Jones Appalachian Center
  • Certificate of Teaching Excellence, College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences, Virginia Tech, 2012.

Books

Dear Appalachia: Readers, Identity, and Popular Fiction since 1878 (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2011).

Journal Articles

Stewart Scales, Emily Satterwhite, and Abigail August, “Mapping Appalachia’s Boundaries: Historiographic Overview and Digital Collection,” Journal of Appalachian Studies 24:1 (Spring 2018): 89-100.

Lara N. Moody, Emily Satterwhite, and Warren K. Bickell, “Substance Use in Rural Central Appalachia: Current Status and Treatment Considerations,” Journal of Rural Mental Health 41:2 (April 2017): 123-135.

“The Politics of Hillbilly Horror,” in Michele Coffey and Jodi Skipper, eds., Navigating Souths: Transdisciplinary Explorations of a US Region (U of Georgia Press, New Southern Studies Series, 2017): 227-245.

Leigh-Anne Krometis, Julia Gohlke, Korine Kolivras, Emily Satterwhite, Susan West Marmagas, and Linsey C. Marr, “Environmental Health Disparities in the Central Appalachian Region of the United States,” Reviews on Environmental Health 32:3 (2017): 253-266.

“Reading Craddock, Reading Murfree: Local Color, Authenticity, and Geographies of Reception,” American Literature 78:1 (March 2006): 59-88. 

Jessica Taylor and Emily Satterwhite, “Economic Change and Perceptions of Health in Two Coalfield-Adjacent Appalachian Counties, circa 1950-2019,” Appalachian Journal (2021).

Erika Hernandez, Katie Carmichael, Emily Satterwhite, Chelsea Yanuaria, and Julie C. Dunsmore, “‘Lots of Prayer, Lots of Emotional Coaching, and Pray it Works out the Best’: Tuning in to Kids in a Rural Appalachian Community,” Journal of Rural Mental Health 44:3 (July 2020): 184-204.

Emily Satterwhite, Shannon Elizabeth Bell, Linsey C. Marr, Christopher K. Thompson, Aaron J. Prussin II, Lauren Buttling, Jin Pan, and Julia M. Gohlke, “Building Interdisciplinary Partnerships for Community-Engaged Environmental Health Research in Appalachian Virginia,” International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 17:5 (March 2020): 1695, 16 pages.

Digital Scholarship

Stewart Scales, Emily Satterwhite, and Abigail August, “Mapping Appalachia: A Digital Collection,” https://www.mapappalachia.geography.vt.edu/, May 2018.

Research Awards

  • Award for Excellence in Research and Creative Scholarship, $500, College of the Liberal Arts and Human Sciences (CLAHS), Virginia Tech, February 11, 2014.
  • Phi Beta Kappa Albert Lee Sturm Award for Faculty Excellence in Research, $500, for Dear Appalachia (2011), Mu Chapter, Virginia Tech, May 16, 2013.
  • Scholar of the Week, Office of the Vice President for Research, Virginia Tech, November 5, 2012.
  • Weatherford Award for best non-fiction book of 2011, $500, Appalachian Studies Association and Berea College Loyal Jones Appalachian Center, March 23, 2012.

Research Grants

  • “Addressing Community Health Concerns near the Radford Army Ammunition Plant,” Appalachian Teaching Project, $4,500, Appalachian Regional Commission, June 22, 2018.
  • Appalachian Transition Fellow host site, Highlander Research and Education Center, March 23, 2018.
  • “Community Conversations for Health: A Preliminary Qualitative Study in Montgomery and Pulaski Counties,” pilot grant, $6,000, Ecological and Human Health in Rural Communities, Global Systems Science Destination Area, Feb. 20, 2018. Rebecca Hester, Shannon Bell, and Emily Satterwhite, PIs.
  • Grant for Ecological and Human Health in Rural Communities concept, $75,000, Global Systems Science Destination Area, Virginia Tech, June 5, 2017. Steering Committee: Julia Gohlke, Korine Kolivras, Leigh-Anne Krometis, Susan Marmagas, Linsey Marr, Emily Satterwhite ($9,000 to Satterwhite).
  • Summer Scholars Grant for “Parental emotion socialization in Appalachia: Linguistic markers of cultural tension,” Tazewell County, Virginia, $20,000, Institute for Society, Culture, and the Environment (ISCE), Virginia Tech, April 13, 2016. Katie Carmichael, PI ($3119.51 to co-I Satterwhite).
  • Grant for piloting “Tuning in to Kids” program, Tazewell County, Virginia, $3390, Institute for Society, Culture, and the Environment (ISCE), Virginia Tech, March 23, 2016. Julie Dunsmore, PI ($0 to co-I Satterwhite).
  • Seed grant for “How does environmental landscape change shape community and ecological health in the Central Appalachian Coalfields?: A pilot study in Tazewell County, Virginia,” $20,353, Global Change Center and Institute for Society, Culture, and the Environment, and Fralin Life Science Institute, Virginia Tech, November 27, 2015. Leigh-Anne Krometis, PI ($3969 to co-I Satterwhite).
  • “Community Organizing & Climate Action,” Watauga Residential College, Appalachian State University, March 26, 2019.
  •  “The Role of Professors in the Climate Crisis,” Appalachian State University, March 26, 2019.
  •  “Women and Culture in Appalachia: A Conversation,” with Theresa Burriss and Jessica Turner, moderated by Brandon Story, Memorial Chapel, Institute for Faith and Culture, King University, September 12, 2016.
  •  “Hillbilly Horror: Fearing, Cheering, and Gendering the Rural in the Appalachian Slasher,” From Reverence to Resistance: Appalachians Fighting on Film Series, Gender and Women’s Studies Program, University of Kentucky, February 24, 2015.
  • “Fearing and Celebrating the Rural as Deviant in Horror Movies,” featured speaker, International Crime, Media and Popular Culture Studies Conference, Indiana State University, September 23, 2014.
  • “Dreams of Appalachia: Popular Regional Fiction and ‘Universal Homesickness,’” The Buechner Institute at King University Lecture Series: Faith Engaging Culture, King College, Bristol, Tennessee, September 9, 2013.
  • “Appalachia and the University,” part of “Finding Our Place: Region, Identity, and Education” Roundtable Discussion with Erica Abrams Locklear and Tal Stanley, Virginia Military Institute, Lexington, Virginia, September 13, 2012.
  • Extractive Energy and the Environmental Humanities symposium, West Virginia University, April 16-18, 2020.
  • “Hillbilly Horror and New South Identities,” Transforming New South Identities Symposium, Center for the Study of Southern Culture, University of Mississippi, Oxford, Mississippi, February 27 - March 2, 2014.

Undergraduate Courses

  • Introduction to Appalachian Studies
  • Societal Health in Local and Global Contexts
  • Appalachian Community Research
  • Theories of Popular Culture
  • Functions of Popular Culture: Horror Movies

Graduate Courses

  • Foundations in Appalachian Studies
  • Race, Genre, and Popular Culture

Featured Books