Cathy Davidson
Encyclopedia
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 eighteen books. Her work for the last decade has focused on technology, collaboration, cognition, learning, and the digital age.
Davidson was born in Chicago
, received her B.A. from Elmhurst College
and her M.A. and Ph.D. from the Binghamton University
. She also has done postdoctoral studies at the University of Chicago
and was presented with Honorary Doctorates from Elmhurst College and Northwestern University
.
Her most recent book, Now You See It: How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Learn, published by Viking Press in August 2011, was named by Publishers Weekly "one of the top ten science books" of the Fall 2011 season. She is currently on an author tour for 'Now You See It'. More information about the book, including an author blog, a listing of book tour appearances and a media kit is available at nowyouseeit.net.
During the 2009-10 academic year, Dr. Davidson chaired Duke University's Digital Futures Task Force, whose university-wide open access policy was unanimously accepted by Duke's Academic Council in March of 2010. 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.
from 1998 to 2006, in which capacity she had administrative responsibility for over sixty research programs operating between and among Duke’s nine academic and professional schools. Innovative design of technologies for research, teaching and learning was part of her charge and, in 1999 she helped create ISIS (the program in Information Science + Information Studies) at Duke, a leader in the Duke Digital Initiative and convener of the first-ever academic podcasting conference. In 2002, she co-founded (with David Theo Goldberg) the virtual organization HASTAC
(Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology Advanced Collaboratory, pronounced "haystack"), an international organization dedicated to rethinking the future of learning for the information age. A network of networks, HASTAC has some 5,000 members dedicated to transforming and reforming traditional education with peer-to-peer collaborative techniques inspired by the open web. HASTAC administers the annual $2 million MacArthur Foundation Digital Media and Learning Competition. In its third year, the 2010 Competition, “Reimagining Learning,” was a collaboration with the White House Educate to Innovate Initiative as well as with Sony, EA, and ESA. Dr. Davidson's MacArthur research (with Goldberg) was published as The Future of Learning Institutions in a Digital Age by MIT Press in 2009, followed by a full book (with Goldberg), "The Future of Thinking: Learning Institutions in a Digital Age" also published by MIT Press in 2010. Davidson blogs regularly as Cat in the Stack at www.hastac.org.
Prior to joining the faculty of Duke University Davidson was a professor of English at Michigan State University
.
During her time as Vice Provost for Interdisciplinary Studies, Davidson worked with colleagues to help create the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience. The changes in this rapidly growing and by no means unitary field, along with Davidson's ongoing work with the MacArthur Foundation Digital Media and Learning Initiative and with HASTAC, are the background and motivation for Now You See It: How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Learn (Viking Press, 2011).
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. She lectures and consults widely on interdisciplinarity, collaboration, digital literacy, virtual communities, and innovative learning-applications of new technologies.
She served as General Editor of the Oxford University Press Early American Women Writers Series 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.
Davidson has also published on Olaudah Equiano
, an eighteenth-century former slave, writer, and abolitionist. Her Olaudah Equiano, Written by Himself was featured in the Fall 2006/Spring 2007 issue of Novel: A Forum on Fiction.
Her article, "Humanities 2.0: Promise, Perils, Predictions" appeared in the May 2008 PMLA journal.
Along with David Theo Goldberg, in 2007 she posted a first-draft of "The Future of Learning Institutions in a Digital Age" on the collaborative experimental website of the Institute for the Future of the Book (http://www.futureofthebook.org). Davidson and Goldberg synthesized this into a Research Paper as well as into a traditional book publication sponsored by the MacArthur Foundation and published by MIT Press as "The Future of Thinking: Learning Institutions in a Digital Age."
Duke University
Duke University is a private research university located in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present day town of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco industrialist James B...
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 eighteen books. Her work for the last decade has focused on technology, collaboration, cognition, learning, and the digital age.
Davidson was born in Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, received her B.A. from Elmhurst College
Elmhurst College
Elmhurst College is a comprehensive private liberal arts college in Elmhurst, Illinois with a tradition of service-oriented learning. It has a rich affiliation with the United Church of Christ.- History :...
and her M.A. and Ph.D. from the Binghamton University
Binghamton University
Binghamton University, also formally called State University of New York at Binghamton, , is a public research university in the State of New York. The University is one of the four university centers in the State University of New York system...
. She also has done postdoctoral studies at the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
and was presented with Honorary Doctorates from Elmhurst College and Northwestern University
Northwestern University
Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston and Chicago, Illinois, USA. Northwestern has eleven undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools offering 124 undergraduate degrees and 145 graduate and professional degrees....
.
Her most recent book, Now You See It: How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Learn, published by Viking Press in August 2011, was named by Publishers Weekly "one of the top ten science books" of the Fall 2011 season. She is currently on an author tour for 'Now You See It'. More information about the book, including an author blog, a listing of book tour appearances and a media kit is available at nowyouseeit.net.
During the 2009-10 academic year, Dr. Davidson chaired Duke University's Digital Futures Task Force, whose university-wide open access policy was unanimously accepted by Duke's Academic Council in March of 2010. 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.
Experience and work
Davidson served as Vice Provost for Interdisciplinary Studies at Duke UniversityDuke University
Duke University is a private research university located in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present day town of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco industrialist James B...
from 1998 to 2006, in which capacity she had administrative responsibility for over sixty research programs operating between and among Duke’s nine academic and professional schools. Innovative design of technologies for research, teaching and learning was part of her charge and, in 1999 she helped create ISIS (the program in Information Science + Information Studies) at Duke, a leader in the Duke Digital Initiative and convener of the first-ever academic podcasting conference. In 2002, she co-founded (with David Theo Goldberg) the virtual organization HASTAC
HASTAC
is a virtual organization of over 7000 individuals and institutions inspired by the possibilities that new technologies offer for shaping how society learns, teaches, communicates, creates, and organizes at the local and global levels...
(Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology Advanced Collaboratory, pronounced "haystack"), an international organization dedicated to rethinking the future of learning for the information age. A network of networks, HASTAC has some 5,000 members dedicated to transforming and reforming traditional education with peer-to-peer collaborative techniques inspired by the open web. HASTAC administers the annual $2 million MacArthur Foundation Digital Media and Learning Competition. In its third year, the 2010 Competition, “Reimagining Learning,” was a collaboration with the White House Educate to Innovate Initiative as well as with Sony, EA, and ESA. Dr. Davidson's MacArthur research (with Goldberg) was published as The Future of Learning Institutions in a Digital Age by MIT Press in 2009, followed by a full book (with Goldberg), "The Future of Thinking: Learning Institutions in a Digital Age" also published by MIT Press in 2010. Davidson blogs regularly as Cat in the Stack at www.hastac.org.
Prior to joining the faculty of Duke University Davidson was a professor of English at Michigan State University
Michigan State University
Michigan State University is a public research university in East Lansing, Michigan, USA. Founded in 1855, it was the pioneer land-grant institution and served as a model for future land-grant colleges in the United States under the 1862 Morrill Act.MSU pioneered the studies of packaging,...
.
During her time as Vice Provost for Interdisciplinary Studies, Davidson worked with colleagues to help create the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience. The changes in this rapidly growing and by no means unitary field, along with Davidson's ongoing work with the MacArthur Foundation Digital Media and Learning Initiative and with HASTAC, are the background and motivation for Now You See It: How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Learn (Viking Press, 2011).
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. She lectures and consults widely on interdisciplinarity, collaboration, digital literacy, virtual communities, and innovative learning-applications of new technologies.
Books and publications
Davidson is the author or editor of over twenty books. Among the most recent is Closing: The Life and Death of an American Factory (a collaboration with documentary photographer Bill Bamberger), recipient of the Mayflower Cup Award for Non-Fiction. The photographs from Closing traveled to museums around the U.S. for four years, including to the Smithsonian Museum of American History where the exhibit was viewed by over three million visitors. Other recent publications include: Revolution and the Word: The Rise of the Novel in America (Oxford, 1986; Expanded edition 2004), Reading in America: Literature and Social History (Hopkins, 1989), The Book of Love: Writers and Their Love Letters (Pocket/Simon and Schuster, 1992), Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji: On Finding Myself in Japan (Dutton/Penguin, 1993; expanded edition, Duke U Press, 2004), and, with Linda Wagner-Martin, The Oxford Companion to Women's Writing in the United States (1995) and The Oxford Book of Women's Writing in the United States (1995).She served as General Editor of the Oxford University Press Early American Women Writers Series 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.
Davidson has also published on Olaudah Equiano
Olaudah Equiano
Olaudah Equiano also known as Gustavus Vassa, was a prominent African involved in the British movement towards the abolition of the slave trade. His autobiography depicted the horrors of slavery and helped influence British lawmakers to abolish the slave trade through the Slave Trade Act of 1807...
, an eighteenth-century former slave, writer, and abolitionist. Her Olaudah Equiano, Written by Himself was featured in the Fall 2006/Spring 2007 issue of Novel: A Forum on Fiction.
Her article, "Humanities 2.0: Promise, Perils, Predictions" appeared in the May 2008 PMLA journal.
Along with David Theo Goldberg, in 2007 she posted a first-draft of "The Future of Learning Institutions in a Digital Age" on the collaborative experimental website of the Institute for the Future of the Book (http://www.futureofthebook.org). Davidson and Goldberg synthesized this into a Research Paper as well as into a traditional book publication sponsored by the MacArthur Foundation and published by MIT Press as "The Future of Thinking: Learning Institutions in a Digital Age."