My Story

I never thought I would love teaching and learning as much as I do. My meager view of the world growing up was shaped by my upbringing in a small, Baptist town in South-central Virginia. I still to this day am in disbelief on how I ended up in a college with a doctoral degree in cultural anthropology. I absolutely abhorred high school and had simple plans to settle into the restaurant job I had scored when I was 15. But something happened. I met someone who was curious and encouraged me to be curious as well. I enrolled in the local community college with my newfound curiosity and experienced what I recall to be a gentle, creeping, beautiful explosion. I was taught by the first woman I had ever met with a Ph.D, I learned new religions, cultures, and ways of knowing and . . . I got A’s! Even after twelve years of college, traveling beyond my little town to new states and different hemispheres, learning new languages, and earning three degrees, that curiosity is still unquenched and I try to infect my students with it every chance I get.

Christey Carwile
Carwile salsa dancing
Aerial Landscape - Jones Mountain, Farm, and Garden

Education

  • B.A. in Anthropology (Latin America and Gender Studies), Appalachian State University
  • M.A. in Anthropology (Children, Religion, West Africa), Southern Illinois University at Carbondale
  • Ph.D. in Anthropology (Gender, Ritual and Motherhood in Nigeria)
 

Research Interests

  • Water Religions in West Africa and the Diaspora,
  • Gender, Power and the Politics of Reproduction (Nigeria)
  • African Aesthetics in Popular Dance
  • Ethnochoreography

Courses Taught

  • Ant 2610: Cultures of Sub-Saharan Africa,
  • Ant 3150: Dance, Culture, and Identity,
  • Ant 3800: Gender in Cross-Cultural Perspective

Crews and Other Activities

  • Practitioner of Theatre of the Oppressed- an applied liberatory theatre technique created by Augusto Boal
  • Lead student break trip to the Pine Ridge Native American Reservation in South Dakota every other Fall
  • Teach salsa dance lessons with students for inmates at the Swannanoa Women's Correctional Center

Contact Dr. Carwile

828-771-3704
Boon 122
WWC CPO 6093

PO Box 9000

Asheville, NC 28815-9000