Dr. Katherine Weiss
JOHNSON CITY – East Tennessee State University has named Dr. Katherine Weiss as the new chairperson of the department of literature and language. Weiss joined the ETSU faculty in 2006.
Weiss' teaching and research interests include modern and contemporary Irish, British and American drama. Every other year, she takes a group of students to London for a study-abroad course called "London Theatre." In addition to her teaching, she directed two short Samuel Beckett plays for the ETSU Division of Theatre in 2010.
Weiss is co-editor, with Sean Kennedy, of the 2009 book "Samuel Beckett: History, Memory, Archive." In 2013, her book "The Plays of Samuel Beckett" was given high marks by the Times Literary Supplement. Weiss' most recent book, published in 2014, is "A Student Handbook to the Plays of Tennessee Williams: The Glass Menagerie; A Streetcar Named Desire; Cat on a Hot Tin Roof; Sweet Bird of Youth." She is at work on "American Drama Since 1945," a guide to criticism and scholarship for the Palgrave Essential Criticism series.
In addition to her publications, Weiss has spoken at several conferences. She was an invited speaker at Oxford University's "Samuel Beckett: Debts and Legacies" Seminar Series in 2010 and 2013 and has been a participant twice on Modern Language Association panels dealing with the work of Beckett.
In 2011 Weiss' scholarship was recognized by the ETSU college of arts and sciences with its Distinguished Research Award.
Since coming to Johnson City, Weiss has served the ETSU department of literature and language in several capacities, including assistant chair for undergraduate studies and assistant chair for graduate studies.
Weiss earned a Ph.D. in English literature from the University of Reading in 2002. She holds master's degrees from California State University, Los Angeles, and Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland. She was awarded a bachelor of arts degree in English literature at San Francisco State University. Before coming to ETSU, she taught at the University of Texas Pan American and at Poland's University of Łódź.
The ETSU Department of Literature and Language offers degrees in English with focuses on literature, secondary education, linguistics, creative writing and classics; foreign languages, with concentrations in Spanish, French and German, along with a minor in Japanese; and women's studies.
