curriculum vitae

Bethany Nowviskie, MA Ed., Ph.D.

 
Director, Digital Research & Scholarship, University of Virginia Library
Associate Director, Scholarly Communication Institute
President, Association for Computers and the Humanities

PO Box 400113
Alderman Library
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, VA 22904-4113

phone: 434.243.2218
email: bethany@virginia.edu
web: nowviskie.org/

Education:

• Ph.D. in English Language and Literature,
  University of Virginia, 2004.
  concentrations: digital humanities/humanities computing; Victorian poetry; hermeneutics, textual criticism, and the history of the book
  dissertation: Speculative Computing: Instruments for Interpretive Scholarship.
• MA Ed. in English Education,
  Wake Forest University, 1996.
  Master Teacher Fellowship awardee;
  thesis project: The John Keats Hypermedia Archive.
• BA in English Literature and Archaeology,
  University of Virginia, 1995.
  degree with highest distinction (summa cum laude),
  distinguished majors program thesis: The Cult of Hestia in Ancient Greek Oikos and Polis.

Primary Positions:

• Director, Digital Research & Scholarship, University of Virginia Library (department includes the Scholars’ Lab and Digital Scholarship R&D.) 2007-present.
• Associate Director, Scholarly Communication Institute (a Mellon-funded thinktank for strategies to advance scholarship in the context of the digital revolution.) 2009-present.
• President, ACH (elected position at the Association for Computers and the Humanities.) 2012-present. VP & Executive Council Member, 2008-2011.
• Chair, Committee on Information Technology, Modern Language Association (MLA.) 2011-present.

Recent Funded Research Activities:

• Co-PI, Library of Congress-funded project, “Omeka + Neatline,” with Tom Scheinfeldt of George Mason University. 2010-present.
• PI, NEH Institute for Advanced Technology in the Digital Humanities, “Institute for Enabling Geospatial Scholarship.” 2009-2011.
• PI, NEH Digital Humanities Start-Up Grant, “Neatline: Facilitating Geospatial and Temporal Interpretation of Archival Collections.” (joint funding from NEH and IMLS.) 2009-2010.

Forthcoming Publications

• book chapter: “How to Play with Maps,” Space/Place/Play, ed. Ruth Panofsky. Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 2012.
• encyclopedia entry: “Algorithm,” The Johns Hopkins Encyclopedia of Digital Textuality, ed. Lori Emerson, Benjamin Robertson, and Marie-Laure Ryan. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012.
• book chapter: “Ludic Algorithms.” PastPlay: History, Technology, and the Return to Playfulness., ed. Kevin Kee, University of British Columbia Press, 2012

Published Work:

• article: “Where Credit is Due: Preconditions for the Evaluation of Collaborative Digital Scholarship.” Profession. Modern Language Association, 2011.
• book chapter “Uninvited Guests: Regarding Twitter at Invitation-Only Events,” in Hacking the Academy, eds. Dan Cohen and Tom Scheinfeldt. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2011.
• co-editor: special issue of LLC: the Journal of Digital Scholarship in the Humanities, with John Nerbonne et al., featuring papers from Digital Humanities 2010 at King’s College, London. Oxford University Press. Fall 2011.
• essays: “Eternal September of the Digital Humanities” and “What Do Girls Dig?” Debates in the Digital Humanities, ed. Matthew K. Gold. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2012.
• editor, open access collection: #Alt-Academy: Alternative Academic Careers for Humanities Scholars. MediaCommons, 2011. Solicited and edited 24 essays, narratives, and dialogues by 33 contributors, composed an introduction to the collection (“Two Tramps in Mud Time“), and refined the online MediaCommons platform for continued grassroots publishing.
• article: “‘Inventing the Map’ in the Digital Humanities (A Young Lady’s Primer).” in Visualizing the Archive, special issue of Poetess Archive Journal, vol 2. no. 1, 2010: 1-46.
• invited articles: “Checking in with DH Answers” and “DH Answers by the Numbers,” in ProfHacker, Chronicle of Higher Education, 3 March 2011 and 8 December 2010.
• article: ““The #alt-ac Track: Negotiating Your ‘Alternative Academic’ Appointment,” in ProfHacker, Chronicle of Higher Education, 31 August 2010.
• book chapter: “Adapting an Open Source, Scholarly Web 2.0 System for Findability in Library Collections: Or, Frankly, Vendors, We Don’t Give a Damn.” With Bess Sadler and Erik Hatcher, in Library 2.0 Initiatives in Academic Libraries. Edited by Laura B. Cohen. Chicago: Association of College and Research Libraries, 2008.
• article: “A Scholars’ Guide to Research, Collaboration, and Publication in NINES.” Romanticism and Victorianism on the Net, No. 47: August 2007.
• article: “NINES: A Federated Model for Integrating Digital Scholarship.” With Jerome McGann, Electronic Book Review, Spring 2007: 1-40.
• article: “Collex: Collections and Exhibits for the Remixable Web.” Electronic Book Review, Spring 2007: 1-17.
• book chapter: “Speculative Computing: Temporal Modelling” (with Johanna Drucker), A Companion to Digital Humanities. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2004.
• article: “Subjectivity in the Ivanhoe Game: Visual and Computational Strategies,” Text Technology, vol.12, n.2: 2003.
• bibliography: “Select Resources for Image-Based Humanities Computing.” Computers and the Humanities. Vol. 36, Issue 1, February 2002.
• article: “A Hypermedia Guide to the Life and Poetic Works of John Keats.” Studies
  in Teaching. 1995 Research Digest. Ed. Leah P. McCoy. Wake Forest University, Dec. 1995. ERIC microfiche, ED401261.

Selected Presentations:

• “Lazy Consensus,” keynote talk at Code4Lib 2012, Seattle.
• “Two and a Half Cheers for the Lunaticks,” invited panel presentation at MLA 2012, Seattle.
• “The Praxis Program at the Scholars’ Lab,” invited talk at CUNY Graduate Center, 2011.
• “How to Play with Maps,” keynote talk at Space/Place/Play, Canadian Writing Research Collaboratory Conference (CWRC), Toronto, 2011.
• “The “#alt-ac” Track: Digital Humanists off the Straight and Narrow Path to Tenure,” panel presenter and organizer, Digital Humanities 2011 conference, Stanford University.
• “Historic Interpretation, Preservation, and Augmented Reality in Falmouth Jamaica,” paper presentation, Digital Humanities 2011 conference, Stanford University (with Wayne Graham).
• “DH Answers: Building a Community-Based Q&A Board for the Digital Humanities,” poster presentation, Digital Humanities 2011 conference, Stanford University (with Stéfan Sinclair, Joseph Gilbert, and Julie Meloni).
• “Where Credit is Due,” invited talk at the NINES / NEH Summer Institute, 2011.
• “A Skunk in the Library: the Path to Production for Scholarly R&D,” University of Nebraska Libraries 2011 Visiting Scholar lecture, 2011.
• “From Digital Humanities to the Alternative Academy”, keynote talk for the NWO’s CATCH to eCATCH symposium (“Continuous Access to Cultural Heritage”), Amsterdam, 2011.
• “Inventing the Map,” as part of a panel on “Digital Texts and the Spatial Turn,” Society for Textual Scholarship International Conference, State College, PA, 2011.
• “Mambo Italiano,” position paper delivered in absentia at a roundtable on the “History and Future of Digital Humanities,” MLA Convention 2011.
• “Monopolies of Invention: Crossing Class Lines in the Digital Humanities.” Variations on a theme, delivered as keynote lectures at 3 Australian universities in 2010: University of Sydney Digital Humanities/Digital Editing symposium, a University of Canberra special event, and the University of Melbourne Libraries “Information Futures Forum”.
• “Expressive Archives,” invited lecture, University of Canberra Digital Design + Media Arts Research Cluster, 2010.
• “Instruments, Not Answers: A Pragmatist’s Approach to the Humanities Research Environment” and “Crossing Class Lines in the Digital Humanities,” two invited presentations at the Inaugural NZ-RED Workshop, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, 2010.
• “But Who Looks East at Sunset? Gerard Manley Hopkins and Scientific Observation,” at By the Numbers: the Victorian Quantification of Everything (2010 meeting of the Victorians Institute, Charlottesville, VA.)
• “Humanities 2.0: ‘Evidence’ and Llull’s Great Art” at Burdens of Proof: Emerging Issues in the Law & Humanities conference, University of Virginia 2010.
• “Negotiating the Cultural Turn(s): Subjectivity, Sustainability, and Authority in the Digital Humanities.” invited Rosenzweig Forum lecture (with Tim Powell), Georgetown University, 2010.
• “Inventing the Map: from 19th-century Pedagogical Practice to 21st-century Geospatial Scholarship,” Digital Humanities, King’s College, London, 2010.
• “NINES as a Virtual Research Environment?” in Building the Humanities Lab: Scholarly Practices in Virtual Research Environments, Digital Humanities, King’s College, London, 2010.
• “Graceful Degradation: Results of the Survey,” with Dot Porter. Digital Humanities, King’s College, London, 2010.
• “Temporal Modelling: Swinburne’s Poems and Ballads, 1866,” Canadian Historical Association, Congress, Montreal 2010.
• “GIS, Graphesis, and the Gift of Screws,” Institute for Enabling Geospatial Scholarship, University of Virginia, 2010.
• “Digital Scholarship in an Academic Research Library: UVa’s Scholars’ Lab,” project briefing, with Michael Furlough and Anne Houston. Coalition for Networked Information (CNI) Spring Membership Meeting, 2010.
• “Geospatial Scholarship and Data in the United States,” invited lecture at the British Royal Society, ESRC workshop on geospatial data, London, 2010.
• “Monopolies of Invention,” invited panelist (“Links and Kinks in the Chain: Collaboration in the Digital Humanities”), MLA Convention 2009, Philadelphia.
• “New World Ordering,” panel organizer and presenter, Digital Humanities 09, University of Maryland, College Park, 2009.
• “Graceful Degradation: Managing Digital Humanities Projects in Times of Transition and Decline,” (with Dot Porter). Two poster presentations: at Digital Humanities 09, University of Maryland, College Park, 2009 and at DRHA 2009, Queen’s University, Belfast, 2009.
• “The Flailing is Mutual: Scholarly & Administrative Responses to Geospatial Technology,” Scholarly Communication Institute 7, University of Virginia, 2009.
• “Geospatial Data Delivery and Historic Maps,” invited lecture, Seas of Change: ALA/ACRL Rare Books and Manuscripts Section Pre-Conference, Charlottesville, Virginia, 2009.
• “New World Ordering: Shaping Geospatial Information for Scholarly Use.” MITH Digital Dialogues, University of Maryland, 2008.
• “Speculative Computing,” invited plenary talk, NEH faculty seminar, “The Humanities in the 21st Century”: Northern Virginia Community College, 2008.
• “Collex: Facets, Folksonomy, and Fashioning the Remixable Web.” Digital Humanities 2007 conference, University of Illinios, Urbana-Champaign, 2007.
• “Collex: NINES in the Semantic Web.” (with Duane Gran and Erik Hatcher). Digital Library Federation Fall Forum, Boston, 2006.
• several NINES-related presentations of Collex and Rossetti Archive redesign work (University of Virginia, 2003-present).
• “NINES and Digital Scholarship” (presented at annual Monuments and Dust conference — London 2004).
• “Lullian Method and Interpretation in Humanities Computing” at ACH/ALLC 2003 in Athens, Georgia.
• “Some Applications of Game Theory to Digital Game Design” (as part of a panel on the Ivanhoe Game for ACH/ALLC 2002: New Directions in Humanities Computing. Tuebingen, Germany — July 2002.)
• “Biblioludica: a game model for teaching material culture” at SHARP 2002 (Society for the History of Authorship, Reading, and Publishing). British Library, London — July 2002.
• “Ludic Algorithms: or, How to Make Games and Why” (invited speaker in Graduate Student Lecture Series, UVA English Department. April 2002.)
• “The Playful Scholarly Endeavor” (brief invited talk at the Game Developer’s Conference (GDC) Academic Summit, San Jose, CA — March 2002.)
• “The Temporal Modelling Project” (presentation and demo for the project’s funder, the Intel Corporation. October 2001.)
• “Ivanhoe and Game Design” (panel discussion on the Ivanhoe Game with Johanna Drucker and Jerome McGann, Humanities and Technology Association Conference 2001) — September 2001.
• “Interface, Interaction, and the Image-Based Edition,” (Panel organizer and speaker, “Re-Ma(r)king the Text, St. Andrews University, Scotland — July 2001.)
• “Interfacing the Rossetti Archive,” (Panel organizer and speaker, “Humanities and Technology Association Conference 2000″) — October 2000.
• “Interfacing the Edition,” (invited panelist, “Technology and Text: Computing in the Humanities”) Millenial Histories and Prophecies: Literary Truth and Scientific Method, University of Virginia Interdisciplinary Graduate Conference (2000)
• “Teaching Writing in a Computerized Classroom,” Virginia English Pedagogy Series (1999)
• “Gerard Manley Hopkins and Scientific Observation” at ut pictura scientia: Art, Science and Technology in the History of Art, Seventh Annual Art History Symposium, McIntire Department of Art, University of Virginia (1998)
• “The Jesuit and the Volcano: Gerard Manley Hopkins’ Krakatoa Sunset Observations” in Academic Apocalypse Now: Thinking Towards 2000, Annual English Department Conference, UVA (1998)
• “Poetic Machines: Possibilities for Hyper-Scholarship” in Writing in the Academy Now: a University of Virginia colloquium (1997).
• “Romanticism on its Own Terms” in Prometheus Unplugged: National Romanticism Conference. Emory University (1996).
• “A Hypermedia Guide to John Keats” (talk and on-line demonstration) in Interdisciplinary Teaching Conference, Wake Forest University (1996).

Selected Digital Projects:

• community forum: Digital Humanities Questions and Answers. Co-creator and host.
• scholarly toolset: Neatline. (Project Director: a set of Omeka plug-ins for geo-temporal interpretation of archival collections — currently under development.)
• scholarly aggregation and toolset: NINES: the Networked Infrastructure for Nineteenth-Century Electronic Scholarship. (ca. 2004-2006). I conceived and designed the Collex software that powers this project, and later managed its implementation. I also contributed to design and implementation of NINES tools Juxta (for textual collation) and the Ivanhoe Game (for experimentation and play). From 2007-2012 I served as Senior Advisor and executive council member for NINES.
• hypermedia archive: The Complete Writings and Pictures of Dante Gabriel Rossetti: A Hypermedia Research Archive, IATH (1997-2000, 2003-04). As Design Editor, I contributed to content modelling and markup, and was sole creator of the interface and searching mechanisms for the first publication of Jerome McGann’s groundbreaking hypermedia archive. (See also a 1998 Demonstration Model of the Rossetti Archive.) Later, I returned to Rossetti after its XML/XSLT conversion to design the present interface.
• scholarly toolset: Collex. (Creator and former project director. Collex is the precursor to Project Blacklight.)
• scholarly tool: Temporal Modelling. (creator, former project manager/Design Architect)
• scholarly tools: the Ivanhoe Game and Juxta. (former designer/Design Consultant)
• hypertext: “Dreaming DeQuincey.” (designer) An experimental, interpretive hypertext using the texts of Thomas DeQuincey’s Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, Suspiria de Profundis, and The English Mail-Coach. With an Authors Note. (1997)
• hypermedia archive: “A Hypermedia Guide to the Life and Poetic Works of John Keats.” (editor) This resource was, at the time of its creation, the sole set of pages about the poet John Keats available on the Web. See a 1997 snapshot from the Internet Archive.

Teaching/Research Interests:

• dissertation: Speculative Computing: Instruments for Interpretive Scholarship. Theorized the building and use of electronic tools and environments for humanities research, teaching, and interpretation. Included case studies on Ramon Llull’s medieval Ars Magna and current digital humanities projects such as Temporal Modelling, the Ivanhoe Game, and the Rossetti Hypermedia Archive.
• areas of expertise:
  • digital humanities administration, project management, and online collaborative research.
  • ars combinatoria, game models, and ludic and algorithmic strategies for research and interpretation.
  • electronic editing, humanities computing, and information visualization (particularly in relation to geo-temporal visualization of humanities data).
  • bibliography, textual criticism, and print & material culture.
  • interface design and digital & generative aesthetics.

Employment History:

• recent work:
  • Before joining the University of Virginia Library in 2007, I was employed on the professional research staff at UVa, where I collaborated with Dr. Jerome McGann on the ARP, Rossetti, and NINES projects. Between 2004 and 2007, I held positions with increasing responsibility: post-doctoral fellow, Research Associate, and Research Scientist in Media Studies at the University of Virginia.
• past work:
  • Project Manager and Design Architect, Temporal Modelling Project. UVA SpecLab. An innovative timeline software project funded by the Intel Corporation. I am responsible for all aspects of development process, including research and consultation with academics, conceptualization, design, testing, grant management, and supervision/collaboration with contracted artists and programmers. (2001-2003)
  • Co-Director (with John Unsworth): Is Humanities Computing An Academic Discipline? An Interdisciplinary Faculty/Graduate Student Seminar (1999-2000)
  • Design Editor, Dante Gabriel Rossetti Archive, Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities. Electronic text encoding and programming, research and bibliographic work. Archive structuring and interface design. I have also served as Senior Research Assistant and Project Manager (with a staff of six) at the Rossetti Archive. (1997-2001)
  • Instructor, University of Virginia English and Media Studies Departments. See “teaching experience,” below. (1997-2003)
  • Adjunct Publications Editor, University of Virginia Division of Continuing Education. Writing and editing of publications meant for resident and adjunct instructors employed by the Division. I have also served as a graduate research assistant in the Dean’s Office for Continuing Education. (1996-1997)
  • Electronic Texts Assistant, University of Virginia Special Collections Department (Electronic Center pilot program). Assisted in creation of an on-line file of manuscript guides. (1994-95)
  • Archaeological Intern, West Virginia Division of Culture and History and State Historic Preservation Office. Archaeological mapping, lab work, and on-site investigation. (summers, 1993-4).
  • Student Manuscripts Processor/Archivist, University of Virginia Special Collections Department. Processed, researched, and organized manuscripts collections from the 16th to the 20th centuries. Archived and catalogued manuscripts and rare books. (1991-95).
• teaching experience:
  • sole instructor of record, University of Virginia:
    • MDST 345: Game Design Workshop (2003) [note: archive.org cache. links operational on Toolkit site.]
    • MDST 344: Culture and Aesthetics of Digital Games (2002) [note: archive.org cache. links operational on Toolkit site.]
    • MDST 352: Material Textuality and the History of the Book (Biblioludica, a “book history mystery”) (2002)
    • ENWR 110 Accelerated Intro to Academic Writing (Themed Seminar: “Richard III”) (2001)
    • ENLT 255 The Text and the Book (a course in bibliography and textual studies) (2000)
    • ENWR 110 Accelerated Intro to Academic Writing (Themed Seminar: Jack the Ripper”) (2000)
    • ENLT 201M Intro to Literary Study (Prerequisite course for students majoring in English) (1999)
    • ENWR 101 Introduction to Academic Writing (Themed Seminar: “Virtual Realities”) (twice: 1998 and 1999)
    • ENSP 106 Rhetoric and Public Speaking (twice: 1997 and 1998)
  • teaching assistant and distance learning site facilitator:
    • UTK/UVA Program in Library Science (1996-1998) University of Virginia
  • high school teacher:
    • Language Arts, Grades 10 and 12, East Forsyth High School, Winston-Salem, NC (1995-1996)
  • tutor:
    • Families Learning Together Program, Johnson Elementary School, Charlottesville, Virginia ESL teaching and GED preparation for low-income and emigrant adults (1999-2001)
    • English as a Second Language, UVA Madison House Volunteer Program Charlottesville High School, Charlottesville, Virginia (1994-95)
  • workshops/inservice training:
    • Hacking Wearables and E-Textiles. Invited workshop/bootcamp, with Bill Turkel. Great Lakes THATCamp, 2010.
    • “Digital Scholarship 101.” Invited Pre-conference workshop, Spotlight on Innovation, James Madison University 2009.
    • “Text and Image Encoding,” Royal Holloway College, University of London. Week-long class in markup and digital scholarship given in the summer of 2000.

  
  

  Fellowships and Awards:

  • See “Current Funded Research Activities” above for recent major grant awards.
  • NINES postdoctoral fellowship, funded by the Mellon Foundation (with Jerome McGann, 2004-2005)
  • Intel Fellowship in Media Studies (2001-2002, with work done on Temporal Modelling in SpecLab)
  • International Game Developers Association student scholarship (2002)
  • Delmas Foundation funding in support of “Biblioludica” an innovative approach to the teaching of book history (in partnership with Johanna Drucker, 2001)
  • Student Book Collector’s Award, Bibliographical Society of the University
    of Virginia (for a collection of American editions of Victorian poets, 1998)
  • University of Virginia Graduate AEP Fellowship (1996-2001)
  • Wake Forest University Master Teaching Fellowship (1995-96)
  • Phi Beta Kappa election (1995) and Dean’s List (1991-95)
  • Departmental Honors Award in Archaeology (1995)
  • University of Virginia Distinguished Majors Program: Highest Honors (1995)
  • University of Virginia Wagenheim Scholarship in English (1994-95)
  • West Virginia Governor’s Internship Awards (summers 1993-94)
  • University of Virginia Intermediary Honors (1993)
  • University of Virginia Undergraduate Scholarships (1991-95)

  
  

  Memberships and Service:

  • Association for Computers and the Humanities (ACH) (President: 2012-present; Vice President and outreach chair: 2010 and 2011; executive committee member: 2008-2010; member: 2001-present.)
  • Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations (ADHO) steering committee member (2011-present.)
  • MediaCommons (editorial board member: 2011-present.)
  • Modern Language Association (MLA) (Committee on Information Technology chair 2011-present; CIT member: 2010-present; MLA member: 1999-present.)
  • centerNet steering committee member for North America (2010-present.)
  • Scholarly Communication Institute steering committee (2008-present.)
  • University of Virginia General Faculty Council (elected member, 2010-present.)
  • University of Virginia Faculty Senate Policy Committee (appointed member 2011-present.)
  • University of Virginia Library R&D committee (member: 2008; chair: 2009-2011.)
  • Program Committee, Digital Library Federation Forum (2009-2011.)
  • Program Committee, Digital Humanities conferences (chair-elect: 2013; vice chair: 2010; member: 2011.)
  • Senior Advisor & Executive Council Member, NINES (the Networked Infrastructure for Nineteenth-Century Electronic Scholarship.) 2007-2012.
  • Reviewer, ACH/ALLC and Digital Humanities conferences (2001-present.)
  • Reviewer, various digital humanities grant programs: National Endowment for the Humanities (US), Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (Canadian), Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK), and National Library of Australia (2007-present.)
  • Reviewer, Digital Humanities Quarterly and Literary and Linguistic Computing (ca. 2007-present; member, LLC editorial board: 2010-present.)
  • University of Virginia PhD committee service: Alexander Gil (English, 2010-present); Wendy Hsu (Music, successfully defended 2011); Beth Bollwerk (Archaeology, successfully defended 2012); Abigail Holeman (Archaeology, 2011-present).
  • Advisory board, Emory University Libraries Digital Scholarship Commons (DiSC). (2011-present.)
  • Co-organizer, THATCamp Virginia: the Technology and Humanities Camp, Scholars’ Lab: December 2010 (with Joseph Gilbert et al.); April 2012 (with Eric Johnson et al.).
  • Co-organizer, New Horizons in Teaching and Research: University of Virginia faculty technology conferences, 2008 (with Stephanie Conley).
  • Phi Beta Kappa honor society (1995-present.)

  
  

  Languages:

  • human: fluency in English and German, reading/writing knowledge of French and Scottish Gaelic
  • machine: sophisticated knowledge of various text encoding systems, metadata schemas, and markup languages; merely dangerous knowledge of various scripting and programming languages.