by Mariana Zardetto Alves & Delaney LePage

LuAnne Roth, Ph.D., joins the professional and public writing department as a senior lecturer. Roth received her doctorate degree in English from University of Missouri, Columbia. She also has a master’s degree in folklore and mythology from the University of California, Los Angeles and a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Augsburg College.

Roth comes to the Harrington School after a long stint as an assistant teaching professor of English at the University of Missouri. In 2015, she received the Mary Lago Teaching Award.

Roth’s research focuses on folklore, film/media, and food studies.

“Folklore is more than just stories,” said Roth. “It is about what surrounds us – our expressions, jokes, the way we dress, the way we act. It is all folklore. It informs all our behaviors.”

Roth’s work has been published in several journals such as Western Folklore and Food, Culture and Society, as well as in edited volumes including Comfort Food Meanings and Memories, and What’s Eating You?: Food and Horror on Screen.

Roth is working on two new writing projects. She is working on an essay on the 2016 “creepy clown” panic that ensued on social media, titled “Putting a Face on Fear.” She is also writing a book-length manuscript that is focused on how food is employed as a tool to negotiate race, class and gender in media representations of the Thanksgiving meal, called “Talking Turkey.”