Wright will develop community-connected projects to promote public humanities and humanities advocacy

Amy E. Wright, Ph.D., professor of Hispanic Studies at Saint Louis University, has been named the David Julian and Virginia Suther Whichard Distinguished Professor in the Humanities at East Carolina University. She will hold the visiting Whichard professorship in ECU’s Thomas Harriot College of Arts and Sciences for two years before returning to SLU. 

Wright currently serves as a dean’s fellow in SLU’s College of Arts and Sciences for graduate education initiatives, after serving seven years as director of Spanish graduate studies. 

The Whichard professorship was established in the mid-1990s by the family of David Julian Whichard, a 60-year editor and publisher of Greenville, North Carolina’s The Daily Reflector, and his wife, Virginia Suther Whichard, a former teacher and 1917 graduate of what was then East Carolina Teachers Training School. Individuals selected for the professorship are nationally recognized for their scholarly and creative achievements and productivity within the humanities.

“Stepping into this new role as the Whichard Distinguished Visiting Professor is a rare chance to serve as a high-profile, transformative ambassador for the humanities—on campus, across North Carolina, and in my field, both nationally and transnationally. I’m deeply grateful for the role that SLU’s support has played in this opportunity,” Wright said. “I share the excitement about all I will learn as I champion the humanities, build partnerships, and hone new leadership and advocacy skills. I’m looking forward to bringing that experience home at the end of my term—so we can translate what I learn at ECU into fresh momentum, programming, and impact for our students and communities at SLU.”

Through the professorship, Wright will develop community-connected projects to promote public humanities, cultural identity and heritage, civic engagement and humanities advocacy, as well as oral history and storytelling.

The projects will include: 

• A student-run collective that records and shares the life stories of Spanish-speaking community members — in Spanish and English — so their experiences and heritage are heard across the Carolinas.
• Community outreach that shines a light on the power of bilingualism and multilingualism, through media spotlights, class collaborations, partnerships and public events that promote belonging and understanding; and 
• Students teaming up with local organizations to research, write and produce bilingual radio dramas for campus radio, accompanied by a website and virtual exhibit that make the shows — and the stories behind them — easy to explore.

Wright’s work examines Mexican and broader Hispanic cultural history through sound and serial storytelling — from corridos and radionovelas to telenovelas, comics, film/TV and podcasts. She has lived in Mexico and Spain for significant periods of time — moving back and forth between countries — drawing from her experiences to explain how narratives move across media and to explore how episodic stories shape identity, memory, nostalgia and belonging.

“In collaboration with communities, I create archives and programs that connect scholarship with lived experiences,” Wright said. “I feel deeply honored and grateful. This distinguished professorship is both an affirmation of my work with Latin American/Spanish-speaking media and my passion to serve broader communities. I’m excited to join ECU to spotlight the value of languages, literatures and cultures — and to amplify the voices and artistic traditions of Spanish-speaking communities on campus and across the region.”

In 2024, Wright received an honorable mention from the Modern Language Association of America (MLA) for the Katherine Singer Kovacs Prize for an outstanding book published in English or Spanish in the field of Latin American and Spanish literatures and cultures. She received the honor for her book Serial Mexico: Storytelling across Media, from Nationhood to Now, published in 2023 by Vanderbilt University Press.

Wright received an individual fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) in 2022 to support the writing of the book. The highly competitive NEH fellowships recognize exceptional humanities projects on the national level, annually awarded through the United States government. The fellowships support advanced research in the humanities, with recipients producing award-winning books, digital materials or other scholarly resources.

In addition to her research and creative projects, Wright will teach bilingual-friendly courses in the departments of English and foreign languages and literatures at ECU that connect scholarship to community practice, beginning with “Latina Voices in American Literature & Culture” in spring 2026. Her courses will include community-engaged components, such as oral history labs, media storytelling and partnerships with local organizations.

Wright received her bachelor's degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and her master’s and doctorate at Brown University.