Submitted by rik_hunter on Sep 12, 2009, 09:36 AM

As a new HASTAC Scholar, I figure I should give a brief introduction about myself, my research, my teaching, and my plans for my weekly blog posts.

First, Im a PhD Candidate in the Composition & Rhetoric Program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where last year I served as the Coordinator for our online writing center. To be brief, my research focuses on the effects of digital technology on the self-sponsored collaborative writing occurring within the fan community of writers on WoWWiki.com. If you are interested in more, feel free to read my dissertation abstract at rikhunter.com.

My interest in technologies of collaboration dovetails my research. For example, since many of us are just in the first few weeks of our teaching this semester, I thought it might be productive profile one of my (hopefully) ongoing projects: the Writing Technology Wiki. It would be wonderful to have other writing instructors and their students contribute to the wiki and help the project continue to grow!

Submitted by Michael J Kramer on Aug 05, 2009, 11:27 AM

A 2009-2010 Alice Kaplan Humanities Institute/Center for Civic Engagement Research Workshop, Northwestern University

Submitted by Erin Gentry Lamb on Jun 24, 2009, 10:47 AM
I am truly delighted to get to introduce to you the next Director of the HASTAC Scholars Program, Fiona Barnett.  Fiona is a Ph.D. candidate in the Literature Program and Women's Studies at Duke University. She graduated with a B.A. in Modern Culture & Media from Brown University in 2001, and then spent several years working in a multimedia studio in Vancouver, BC.  Her scholarly work is at the intersection of feminist and queer theory, science studies, critical theory and visual studies. She is currently at work on her dissertation, entitled Turning the Body Inside Out, which is a genealogy of the fantasy that the body requires investigation, and traces the attachment to the kind of knowledges that can be produced by examining the body (both inside and out). It considers the social, scientific, aesthetic and theoretical practices which discursively produce the body as a visible ? and thus knowable ?  object by repeatedly staging the scene of its dissection. In particular, her project focuses on the historical practices and contemporary situations that reinscribe the desire for an open and legible body, including the autopsy, dissection, lens technologies, museum exhibits, freak shows, serial killers, DNA and especially critical theory itself.  At Duke, Fiona also enjoys organizing the Women's Studies Graduate Scholars Colloquium, a unique program that generates a supportive intellectual community for graduate students.  In her free time, she loves to practice her photography, enjoy the vibrant Durham community and foster dogs through a local rescue organization.

 

I know that Fiona is thrilled to be joining the HASTAC team - perhaps as thrilled as we are to have her on board!  Please join me in welcoming Fiona to HASTAC!

Submitted by Erin Gentry Lamb on Jun 22, 2009, 09:57 PM

Dear HASTAC Members,

I am nearing the end of my tenure as Director of the HASTAC Scholars
Program (and will soon be replaced by the amazing Fiona Barnett, whom I
will properly introduce in a later post). It has been an honor and a
pleasure to be part of the HASTAC team and to get to work with such an
amazing group of scholars.

I want to share with you the performance report we sent to the
Mentors who nominated HASTAC Scholars for the 2008-2009 pilot year (in
the hopes that this might help them to convince their administration to
offer up money again to sponsor another Scholar this next year, even in
hard financial times). For those of you who are regular HASTAC
readers/bloggers/etc., the activities recorded here may all seem quite
familiar, but to see it all gathered together at least reminds me what
an amazing year it was for this pilot program.

We had a group of 55 impressively diverse, creative and accomplished
Scholars. Between September 2009 and May 2010 over 12,650 absolutely
unique visitors from across the United States and internationally tuned
in (with more than 55,500 views) to one of the 13 HASTAC Scholars
Discussion Forums hosted on the HASTAC website. These forums were
facilitated by different HASTAC Scholars, featured an array of
distinguished guests, and were all addressed to HASTAC's three
missions: new media, critical thinking, and participatory learning, in
any and all possible configurations. The forums focused on such vital
and timely topics as ?Academic Publishing in the Digital Age,? ?Fair
Use and the Future of the Commons,? ?Blogging and Tweeting Academia?
and ?The Future of the Digital Humanities,? and featured such
distinguished participants as Brett Bobley (Director of the Office of
Digital Humanities for the National Endowment for the Humanities) and
Howard Rheingold (pioneer of social networking and author of Smart
Mobs). See the report below for a complete list of these discussion
forums.

The HASTAC Scholars also blogged regularly on a diverse array of
topics, participated in many national and international conferences,
tweeted and spread the word about their activities, events at their
universities and HASTAC happenings. They not only contributed to, but
in fact inspired a vibrant conversation about the future of higher
education and the humanities, arts, and interpretive social sciences in
a technological age. The report that follows includes many numbers and
details about the Scholars? performance this past year, but the bottom
line is that the program was so successful that we decided to expand it
in 2009-2010 and open it to the public, inviting nominations in an open
call on the HASTAC site.

If you would like to nominate a HASTAC Scholar for the 2009-2010 program there?s still time! Nominations will run until July 31.
We?ve already received several, including our first international
HASTAC Scholar from Spain, and I hope we?ll see many more flowing in
soon!

I want to thank all of you who participated in our HASTAC Scholar
discussions and who make HASTAC such a vibrant, worthwhile community.
It is largely thanks to your support that we will get to continue this
program that allows the future leaders of the digital humanities to set
the agenda and the conversation now, as part of their own
professionalization and as a way of revitalizing the work we all do.

Sincerely,
Erin Gentry Lamb
Director, HASTAC Scholars Program