Jump to content

Cathy Davidson

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 72.88.52.136 (talk) at 08:18, 17 February 2013 (Why blank out an entire section over a missing reference when it's so easy to verify? (like, literally, just copied the ref from the 88 article)). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Cathy Davidson
Cathy Davidson, portrait by Artie Dixon

Cathy N. Davidson is an American scholar and university professor. She has served as the Ruth F. DeVarney Professor of English at Duke University since 1996 and has held a second distinguished chair as the John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies since 2006. She has served in leadership roles at Duke and a variety of organizations and has authored or edited 18 books. Her work for the last decade has focused on technology, collaboration, cognition, learning, and the digital age.[1]

Background and education

Davidson was born in Chicago, received a B.A. from Elmhurst College, an M.A. and Ph.D. from the Binghamton University, and did postdoctoral studies at the University of Chicago. She has received honorary doctorates from Elmhurst College and Northwestern University.[2] Prior to joining the faculty of Duke, Davidson was a professor of English at Michigan State University.

Career

Davidson served as Vice Provost for Interdisciplinary Studies at Duke University from 1998 to 2006, with administrative responsibility for over 60 research programs in Duke’s nine academic and professional schools.[3] She was responsible for designing technologies for research, teaching, and learning, and in 1999 helped create ISIS, the program in Information Science + Information Studies at Duke.[citation needed] Davidson also worked with colleagues to help create the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience.

In 2003, Davidson initiated a program at Duke, in conjunction with Apple, to give free iPods to each member of the incoming class with no other requirements. This sparked harsh criticism and ridicule from the academic community and news media. The program was viewed as a success by Davidson, however, since it led to new applications for the iPod in an educational environment and inspired a new initiative among Duke students to innovate and collaborate.,,[4][5][6]

In 2010, President Obama nominated her to a six-year term on the National Council on the Humanities, a position confirmed by the Senate in July 2011.[7] Davidson serves on the Board of Advisors to the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation "Digital Media and Learning" book series. She is a former President of the American Studies Association and former editor of the journal American Literature.[8] She lectures and consults on interdisciplinary, collaboration, digital literacy, virtual communities, and innovative learning-applications of new technologies.

In 2002, Davidson co-founded (with David Theo Goldberg) the virtual organization HASTAC (Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology Advanced Collaboratory), an international organization dedicated to rethinking the future of learning for the information age.[9]

In 2012, Cathy N. Davidson and David Theo Goldberg received Educators of the Year awards [10] from the World Technology Network in recognition of “doing the innovative work of ‘the greatest likely long-term significance’ in their field” [11] of education through their work as co-founders of HASTAC/MacArthur Foundation Digital Media and Learning Competition.

Duke Lacrosse Controversy

During the 2006 Duke University lacrosse case, she was one[12] of the so-called Group of 88 professors who, shortly after members of the university's lacrosse team were accused of rape, signed a controversial letter attacking the players and thanking protesters for "making a collective noise" on "what happened to this young woman."[13] After a year-long ordeal that is now widely viewed as one of the most conspicuous miscarriages of justices by a prosecutor in modern American history, the lacrosse players were found innocent of the rape charges. The "Group of 88" letter has since come to be regarded as a notorious example of unfair prejudgment.[14]

Works

Davidson is the author or editor of 18 books.[citation needed] Closing: The Life and Death of an American Factory (a collaboration with documentary photographer Bill Bamberger) was a recipient of the Mayflower Cup Award for Non-Fiction. The photographs from Closing traveled to museums around the U.S. for four years, including the Smithsonian Museum of American History.[citation needed]

She served as General Editor of the Oxford University Press Early American Women Writers Series[citation needed] and, with Ada Norris, edited American Indian Stories, Legends and Other Writings by Zitkala-Sa, the first Penguin Classic devoted to a Native American author.[citation needed]

Her book, Now You See It: How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Learn was named by Publishers Weekly "one of the top ten science books" of the Fall 2011 season".[citation needed] One reviewer wrote: "She makes the case, through numerous examples and lucid argument, that we can do much better in aligning our schools, our workplaces and our lives, and that this will make us not only more successful as a society but more fulfilled as individuals."[15]

Books

  • Revolution and the Word: The Rise of the Novel in America (1986; expanded edition 2004)
  • Reading in America: Literature and Social History (1989)
  • The Book of Love: Writers and Their Love Letters (1992)
  • Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji: On Finding Myself in Japan (1993; expanded edition, 2004)
  • with Linda Wagner-Martin, The Oxford Companion to Women's Writing in the United States (1995)
  • with Linda Wagner-Martin, The Oxford Book of Women's Writing in the United States (1995).
  • with Bill Bamberger, Closing: The Life and Death of an American Factory (1998)
  • Now You See It: How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Learn (2011)
  • with David Theo Goldberg "The Future of Thinking: Learning Institutions in a Digital Age" (2010) [16]

References

  1. ^ http://interdisciplinary.duke.edu/administration/index.php
  2. ^ Cathy N. Davidson, English and Ruth F. Devarney Professor of English
  3. ^ Department of English at Duke University
  4. ^ "Collaborative Learning for the Digital Age". The Chronicle of Higher Education. August 26, 2011. Retrieved September 18, 2012.
  5. ^ Now You See It
  6. ^ http://steve-wheeler.blogspot.com/2012/01/10q-cathy-n-davidson.html
  7. ^ "Cathy Davidson Confirmed for the National Council on the Humanities (Updated)". Duke Today. June 2, 2011. Retrieved September 18, 2012.
  8. ^ Department of English at Duke University
  9. ^ http://www.hastac.org/about/history
  10. ^ http://www.wtn.net/
  11. ^ http://wtn.net/summit2012/finalists.php
  12. ^ Johnson, KC. "Source Notes for Until Proven Innocent: Political Correctness and the Shameful Injustice of the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case" Retrieved on 27 July 2012.
  13. ^ The Johnsville News: Duke Case: The 'listening' statement. Johnsville.blogspot.com (2006-11-10). Retrieved on 2012-04-20.
  14. ^ Bauerlein, Mark. (2010-05-26) The Group of 88 Is Doing Just Fine – Brainstorm – The Chronicle of Higher Education. Chronicle.com. Retrieved on 2012-04-20.
  15. ^ Trapani, Josh. "Now You See It review". Book review. The Washington Independent Review of Books. Retrieved Aug 22, 2011.
  16. ^ http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/future-thinking, accessed 2/13/13

Template:Persondata

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cathy_Davidson&oldid=538685891"