Campus photo courtesy of MU Communications
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49th ANNUAL APPALACHIAN STUDIES
ASSOCIATION CONFERENCE
Power of a Place, Power of Its People
Marshall University, Huntington, West Virginia
March 19 – 21, 2026
Logo by Charlie Umhau learn more about it here.
SPONSORS
West Virginia University Press
Sponsor of Publishers' Reception
Conference Chair
Cicero M. Fain, III, Ph.D., is a fourth-generation Black Huntingtonian. He received his B. A. from the University of Hawaii at Manoa and his M. Ed. from George Mason University. He is the recipient of the Carter G. Woodson Fellowship from Marshall University and received his M.A. and Ph.D. in History from The Ohio State University. His teaching career includes positions at Marshall, Ohio University-Southern, Niagara University, and the College of Southern Maryland. He has authored several articles in peer-reviewed journals, including “Buffalo Soldier, Deserter, Criminal: The Remarkably Complicated Life of Charles Ringo,” in the Ohio Valley Journal, which is his current book project. His first book, “Black Huntington: An Appalachian Story,” published in 2019 by the University of Illinois Press was a finalist for the Weatherford Award, and in 2021 the West Virginia Library Association awarded it the Literary Merit Award. He is the co-editor of the forthcoming “Black Appalachia: Race, Place, and Identity,” the follow-up anthology to 1985’s seminal Blacks in Appalachia. He is the Assistant Provost of Access and Opportunities at Marshall University, the Assistant Research Director and Outreach Specialist for the Appalachian Freedom Heritage Initiative, and the Marshall Liaison to the Appalachian Studies Association. He serves on the boards of the West Virginia Humanities Council, the Cabell-Huntington Convention & Visitors Bureau Cabell/Wayne counties, and the Carter G. Woodson Memorial Foundation.
Program Co-Chair
Paul L. Robertson is an assistant professor in the Department of English at Marshall University. Originally from Hardy, Virginia (at the juncture of Roanoke, Bedford, and Franklin counties, in the Virginia Blue Ridge), Dr. Robertson earned master’s degrees in Appalachian Studies and English from Appalachian State University, and holds a Ph.D. in Media, Art, and Text from Virginia Commonwealth University. He taught courses in Appalachian literature, Appalachian folklore, and multiethnic literature at VCU for seven years before coming to Marshall in the fall of 2023, as an Appalachian literature specialist. Dr. Robertson has also worked for Southern and Appalachian-related archives at Appalachian State and at the University of North Carolina—Chapel Hill. His research interests vary widely, from Appalachian balladry to Appalachian-themed comic books, but primarily concerns contemporary representations of Appalachian identity in mass media and literature. He has been published in The North Carolina Folklore Journal and The Journal of Popular Culture. He is currently working on a book, The Mountains at the End of the World: Subcultural Appropriations of Appalachia, 1990-2010. He lives in Huntington with his wife, Simms, and two savage rat terriers (aka: “Appalachian feist-dogs”).