Ph.D., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Professor Emerita, Interdisciplinary Studies

Curriculum Vitae [pdf]

Harriette Buchanan began her college teaching career in 1965 at East Carolina University, where she had received an M.A. in English with the thesis Berkeleian Idealism in the Works of Elizabeth Madox Roberts. At the time and even when she researched and wrote her doctoral dissertation Southern Writing in 1929, she failed to realize that her view of the world was profoundly interdisciplinary. When she began her career in Interdisciplinary Studies at Appalachian in 1983, she found her intellectual home among other teachers and students who saw the world not as segmented entities but as integrated elements that needed to be seen in their wider contexts in order to be understood.

After over 30 years teaching at Appalachian, Buchanan retired in 2008 and began her new career in needle arts, creating art, clothing and toys for her granddaughters. She maintains her academic interests in the literature and culture of the Southern Appalachian Region and in mysteries and thrillers as a commentary on contemporary American life.