Wilma Dunaway

Wilma A. Dunaway is Professor of Sociology in the Government and International Affairs Program at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, Virginia. She earned a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Tennessee in 1994. She received a fellowship from the Woodrow Wilson Foundation to complete her ground-breaking dissertation about the integration of antebellum Appalachia into global capitalism, and her subsequent research since then have brought her attention as one of the most acclaimed contemporary scholars about this region of the United States.

Since 1996, Dunaway has published four revisionist monographs about pre-Civil War Appalachia, and that work has been recognized through two Weatherford Awards for the best book about Southern Appalachia, an honorary doctorate, and several other book and research awards. In addition, she has edited two books that offer revisions and extensions of world-systems analysis.

Dunaway’s research interests include international political economy, world-systems analysis, racial and ethnic conflict, comparative slavery studies, Native American studies, Appalachian Studies, radical feminist perspectives on women’s work, and qualitative research methodologies.

elected books

* "Southern Laboring Women: Race, Class and Gender Conflict in Antebellum Appalachia". Cambridge University Press, forthcoming.

* "Slavery in the American Mountain South". Cambridge University Press, 2003.
* "The African-American Family in Slavery and Emancipation". Cambridge University Press, 2003.

* "Crises and Resistance in the 21st Century World-System". Praeger Press, 2003.

* "New Theoretical Directions for the 21st Century World-System". Praeger Press, 2003.

* "The First American Frontier: Transition to Capitalism in Southern Appalachia, 1700-1860". University of North Carolina Press, 1996.