Shane Combs

Assistant Professor
combss24@ecu.edu

About

Shane Combs specializes in pedagogy, life writing, and composition. His research and creative writing centers introversion, sensory processing sensitivity, one-on-one conferencing, and the online asynchronous classroom. After the Covid pandemic, he began implementing aspects of positive psychology, including values and strengths, to build a language around sensemaking, perspective building, and to bring students closer to both the contemplated and the experiential. His approach to composition uses life writing and autoethnography to empower students to find the narrative where they are and then build from/out of it. His work has appeared in Composition Studies, Composition Forum, Assay: A Journal of Nonfiction Studies, and Writing on the Edge. If you want to know how his top 5 strengths/values (creativity, love of learning, spirituality, judgment, and appreciation of beauty and excellence) influence who and how he is as a teacher, writer, and researcher, just ask.

Education

  • Ph.D. English Studies, Illinois State University
  • M.A. English, East Carolina University
  • B.F.A. Creative Writing, University of North Carolina Wilmington

Research Interests

  • Life Writing, Autoethnography, and the Spiritual Essay
  • Positive Art (Sensemaking, Strengths and Values, Perspective Building)
  • Introversion, Sensory Processing Sensitivity, and the Online Asynchronous Classroom

Courses Taught

  • ENGL 3880 Writing for Business and Industry
  • ENGL 1100: Foundations of College Writing

Selected Publications and Presentations

  • Combs, D. Shane. “Introvert Impulse: Seeking Donald Murray through Sherwood Forest.” Writing on the Edge. (Forthcoming).
  • Combs, D. Shane. “Anticipating the Spiritual Moment in the Personal Essay: Writing Well-Being by (Re)Negotiating the Self.” Creative Writing Studies Conference. Virginia. 2023. (Accepted)
  • Robillard, Amy E. and D. Shane Combs. How Stories Teach Us: Composition, Life Writing, and Blended Scholarship. Peter Lang Publishing, 2019.
  • Combs, D. Shane. “Can I Be/Get a Witness: An Open Letter to the Life Writing Students I’ve Not Yet Met.” Writing on the Edge, vol. 28, no. 1, 2017, pp. 63-73.
  • Combs, D. Shane. “Go Craft Yourself: Conflict, Meaning, and Immediacies through J. Cole’s ‘Let Nas Down.’” Assay: A Journal of Nonfiction Studies, vol. 3, no. 2, 2017.