Digital dissertation defended!

Just a quick post to note that I successfully defended my digital dissertation on April 14th, 2015 and completed my Literature Ph.D. Check out the finished project at dr.AmandaVisconti.com! (And I'm now on the job market for alternative academic positions, so let me know if you're looking to hire someone with 8+ years of professional interface design experience on a strong research background!)

In addition to links to the Infinite Ulysses participatory digital edition and public code/design repo, the project site links out to a whitepaper covering the process and product of my project, an abstract for the whole project, a manifest listing and describing all the pieces of work that went into the project, and of course all my research blog posts during the project here on the blog.

If you haven't been following along, the dissertation is worth checking out even if you're not interested in the digital humanities, participatory interface design, or Ulysses: I use a novel approach combining design, code, user-testing, site analytics, and blogging, without the traditional 4-5 chapters of proto-monograph. Tweet @Literature_Geek if you have any questions about the process or my research.

Huge thanks are due to my dissertation committee — Drs. Matthew Kirschenbaum (chair), Neil Fraistat, Melanie Kill, Kari Kraus (also Dean's Representative), and Brian Richardson — for their intellectual and personal generosity. In particular, their willingness to learn about, support, and refine my project's unique format and methodology; meeting with me as a team and always being available for discussion throughout the course of the project; and thoughtful evaluation of unusual deliverables for a literature dissertation.

I'm also grateful to the University of Maryland English Department, UMD Graduate School and Dean Charles Caramello, and the UMD Libraries Digital Repository for their support of my unique format and methodology, as well as the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities (MITH) and its stellar staff for introducing me to the digital humanities; intellectual stimulation, community, and funding; and mentorship in diverse digital skills and staff roles.