Winston-Salem State University
Pre-Scholars Conference
“Within, Across, Outside of the Humanities”
Please join us for the Winston-Salem State University Pre-Scholars Conference, where undergraduate students from North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia will showcase their academic research.
This conference provides a platform for undergraduate students to engage deeply with primary sources, develop critical thinking skills, and present their academic work.
By participating, undergraduate students gain valuable research experience and prepare for future academic and professional endeavors. Don’t miss this opportunity to support emerging scholars and celebrate academic excellence.
This event will include a keynote presentation by Dr. Elizabeth J. West from Georgia State University.
Date: Saturday, March 28, 2026
Time: 8 am to 5 pm
Location: Donald J. Reaves Student (DJR) Center, 760 Success Way, Room 100
Keynote Speaker: Dr. Elizabeth J. West
Professor and Amos Distinguished Chair in English Letters Africana Studies, English
Georgia State University
Elizabeth J. West is Professor of English and the John B. and Elena Diaz-Verson Amos Distinguished Chair in English Letters at Georgia State University. Having served previously as Executive Director of the South Atlantic Modern Language Association and Treasurer of the College Language Association, West is presently Director of Academics for Georgia State University’s Center for Studies on Africa and Its Diaspora (CSAD). She is also a member of The University of Mississippi Medical Center’s Asylum Hill Research Consortium and the Advisory Board of The Obama Institute for Transnational American Studies (Johannes Gutenberg University).
West is PI for “Intersectionality in the American South,” a Mellon Foundation Grant (2022-25) supporting the establishment of cross-institutional collectives to advance research, teaching, and public engagement in Intersectionality Studies; and she is director of the CSAD-American Family Insurance initiative focusing on Financial Literacy in the public sector (2021-23). She is a former AAUW Fellow, DAAD (Johannes Gütenberg University) Fellow, and scholar in residence at Dartmouth College in the Department of AAAS.
West’s scholarship focuses on interdisciplinary approaches to studies of early African Diaspora Literatures of the Americas with particular emphasis on spirituality and gender in these works and their connections to the present. Winner of the 2023 College Language Association Book Award, her recent book, Finding Francis: One Family’s Journey from Slavery to Freedom (USC Press 2022) melds biography and historiography in its exploration of slaving and forced migration on Black family and kinship formations in the U.S. South. She is the author of African Spirituality in Black Women’s Fiction: Threaded Visions of Memory, Community, Nature and Being (Lexington 2011), a work distinct in its employment of a diachronic lens to examine specific African spiritual sensibilities traceable from early to modern Black women’s writings. Her essays and shorter works can be found in critical anthologies and journals such as MELUS, JTAS, Amerikastudien, CLAJ, PALARA, Religions, boundary 2, Womanist, Black Magnolias, South Atlantic Review, and South Central Review. Among her edited projects are the coedited anthology, Literary Expressions of African Spirituality (Lexington 2013), the co-edited section, “Religion and Spirituality,” in the Routledge Reader of African American Rhetoric (2018), and the co-edited Roman & Littlefield/Lexington book series, Black Diasporic Worlds: Origins and Evolutions from New World Slaving.
She is the former president of the College Language Association, the oldest and largest professional organization for collegiate faculty of color who teach languages and literatures. She also served as president of the Modern Language Association, making her the first person to serve as president of both humanities organizations.
Apps and Websites to Help You Plan Your Visit
- WSSU Campus Map
- WSSU Parking Map
- Waze: Use this app to share and view real-time traffic and road info with other drivers in your area. You can also see real-time alerts on your route for accidents, traffic jams and more.
- Google Maps: Access this web mapping service for real-time traffic conditions (Google Traffic), route planning for travel, to view street maps and more.
- MapQuest: Visit this website for driving directions, maps, live traffic updates and road conditions.
