Rose Casey

Dr. Rose Casey studies contemporary world literature, postcolonial studies, law and the humanities, and literary theory. Her first book, Aesthetic Impropriety: Property Law and Postcolonial Style, was published by Fordham University Press in 2025. Aesthetic Impropriety analyzes literary texts and legal works across Africa, South Asia, and the Americas to argue that law and literature play vital roles in creating anticolonial world orders. Some of the works examined in her book include Arundhati Roy’s novel The God of Small Things and M. NourbeSe Philip’s epic poem Zong!

Professor Casey is working on a new project, titled Inheriting Dispossession: Succession Law and South African Land Reform, that looks at how post-apartheid South African novelists are theorizing how inheritance law perpetuates racial injustice. Dr. Casey has published articles in the postcolonial environmental humanities, feminist legal theory, and contemporary literature in translation, among other fields.

Dr. Casey works with students from the undergraduate to the graduate level. Her recent courses include “Reading for Pleasure” (ENGL 200), “Global Intrigue” (ENGL 226), and “Novel Ideas” (ENGL 693). She works closely with students to develop their analytic skills and writing abilities. Her teaching has been recognized across the university: she was selected as WVU’s Sigma Tau Delta Outstanding Teacher of the Year (2024), appointed an Honors College Faculty Fellow (2022–2023), and named an Eberly College Outstanding Teacher (2021–2022). Dr. Casey works closely with PhD students and is the Director of Undergraduate Studies.

Dr. Casey is a strong advocate for the humanities across the university and nationally. She serves on the Advisory Board for the WVU Humanities Center, takes part in collective efforts to protect the public university, writes about literature for public audiences, and participates in the local community, including reviving Morgantown NOW and serving as its first president.

For more information, please see Professor Casey’s CV and her personal website.