Biography
Cecilia Konchar Farr is Dean of the College of Liberal and Creative Arts. Before coming to West Liberty in 2021, she served as Faculty Associate in Academic Affairs, Director of the Core Curriculum, Chair of English and Modern Languages, Co-chair of Faculty Council, and in multiple other leadership positions, including the Sr. Mona Riley Endowed Chair in the Humanities, all at St. Catherine University in St. Paul. A committed faculty advocate and academic leader, she was also local and state chair of the American Association of University Professors in Minnesota and on the AAUPs national board. In addition, Dean Konchar Farr is a longtime English professor and author and editor of several scholarly books, including The Ulysses Delusion: Rethinking Standards of Literary Merit and Reading Oprah: How Oprahs Book Club Changed the Way America Reads.
Education
Ph.D. in Literature and Theory, Michigan State University, 1990
School of Criticism and Theory at Dartmouth, 1989
M.A. in English, Brigham Young University, 1987
B.A. in English and Journalism, French minor, Slippery Rock State College, 1982
Most Recent Publications and Presentations
Recent publications include a companion to Gertrude Steins The Making of Americans, entitled As I Was Saying (Dalkey Archive Press 2025), released alongside a centenary re-issue of Steins experimental modernist novel, and a collection of literary essays on the Harry Potter novels, Open at the Close (University of Mississippi Press, 2022)