February 26, 2021

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“ It is in Apple’s DNA that technology alone is not enough—it’s technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the results that make our heart sing. ” — Steve Jobs, Keynote Address, March 2011

My role at Middle Georgia State University has always been a bit ambiguous. Yes, I was hired as a tenure-track faculty member in the Division of Humanities at the former Macon State College in 2002, but as the institution grew and changed, my identity remained in the interstices even if my practical responsibilities were clear. As an Assistant Professor, then Associate, and finally a full Professor, I maintained my teaching, scholarship, and service duties, but has only been post-tenure that my vision as a scholar has come into focus.

My scholarly interests lie in a liminal space between English and Media Studies, or between the content and the containers of the liberal arts. My Ph.D. work and passion lies in traditional literary studies, but since coming to middle Georgia, I have grown increasingly aware of the technologies that define and shape what we call art, culture, knowledge. If I were pressed to name to my professional identity, I might choose Digital Humanist—a hacker scholar whose interests seek ways of using the computer to reconsider the past as we look toward the future of liberal arts in higher education. My work over the last five years exemplifies this new focus.

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