Amanda Visconti
Assistant Professor and Digital Humanities Specialist
Purdue University
This session will review a recently completed, uniquely shaped humanities dissertation, which included the design, code, and user-testing of an experimental social reading interface, alongside regular research blogging and a whitepaper written during the final three weeks before the defense as an analytical discussion and debriefing. Recent guidelines, such as those for both partially and fully digital dissertations published by George Mason University’s History Department last month, suggest that we’re reaching a point where prospective dissertators can be pedagogical rather than defensive when designing and arguing for digital projects. How will discussions around digital dissertations change as we leave behind the onus of proving that such work constitutes critical scholarship? This presentation will include discussion of the designing, arguing for, and shaping of the evaluation of a digital humanities dissertation to both suggest guidelines for those involved in the dissertation process, and spark a conversation around how such changing formats and methods reify or reimagine traditional scholarly values.
Dissertation advisor Matthew Kirschenbaum (University of Maryland) will provide brief remarks on the topic and will be available for questions.
http://www.Dr.AmandaVisconti.com (the dissertation)
http://www.LiteratureGeek.com/tag/dissertation (research blogging from the dissertation)
http://www.InfiniteUlysses.com (site created as focus of dissertation)