Amanda M. Licastro, PhD
CURRENT APPOINTMENT
Stevenson University, Baltimore, MD
Assistant Professor of English, specializing in Digital Rhetoric
Research interests: composition and rhetoric, digital humanities, digital publishing, media history, and dystopian literature.
Faculty Director of Service Learning
Recruits and coordinates instructors interested in teaching Service-Learning courses, works with team to promote and expand Service Scholars program, and develops new service opportunities for Stevenson students.
EDUCATION
Ph.D. in English. The Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY), New York, NY: 2016.
Dissertation: “Excavating ePortfolios: Digging into a Decade of Student-Driven Data.” Chair: Matthew K. Gold. Committee: Sondra Perl, David Greetham, Cathy Davidson. Won the Calder Dissertation Prize in Digital Humanities in May 2016.
M.Phil. in English, with distinction on the second exam (orals). The Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY), New York, NY: 2013.
Certificate in Interactive Technology and Pedagogy. The Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY), New York, NY: 2013.
M.A. in Literature (graduated with honors). DePaul University, Chicago, IL: 2008.
B. A. English Literature and Creative Writing, Honorary Minor in Italian (graduated with honors). Loyola University, Baltimore, MD: 2005.
PUBLICATIONS and MANUSCRIPTS
Peer-Reviewed
Licastro, Amanda. “Learning at the Intersections.” Hybrid Pedagogy (2017): n. pag. Web. 28 June 2017. http://hybridpedagogy.org/learning-intersections/
Licastro, Amanda. “The Problem of Multimodality: What Data-Driven Research Can Tell Us About Online Writing Practices.” Communication Design Quarterly. 4.4 (2-16): 55-73. Dec. 2016. https://sigdoc.acm.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/CDQ-4-4-2016.pdf
Licastro, Amanda, Benjamin Miller, and Jill Belli. “The Roots of an Academic Genealogy: Composing the Writing Studies Tree.” Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy 20.2 (2016): n. pag. Web. Jan. 2016. http://kairos.technorhetoric.net/20.2/topoi/miller-et-al/
Licastro, Amanda, Katina Rogers, and Danica Savonick. “Collaboration.” Digital Pedagogy in the Humanities: Concepts, Models, and Experiments. MLA Commons, 2016. https://digitalpedagogy.mla.hcommons.org/keywords/collaboration/
Licastro, Amanda, Jill Belli, and Benjamin Miller. “The Writing Studies Tree.” REx: The Research Exchange Index: a peer-reviewed cumulative database of international writing research. May 2016. http://rex1.comppile.org/search/full_report.php?EntryID=53
Licastro, Amanda. “What is a Dissertation? New Models, Methods and Media.” Beyond the Proto-Monograph: New Models for the Dissertation, part of Graduate Training in the 21st Century, #Alt-Academy. MediaCommons. Sept. 2014.
Licastro, Amanda, Whitson, Roger and Kimon Keramidas. “Digital Literary Pedagogy: An Experiment in Process-Oriented Pedagogy.” The Journal of Interactive Technology and Pedagogy. Issue 4. Nov, 2013. *Won “First Runner Up” DH Award in Spring 2014 under the category of “Best DH blog post, article, or short publication.”
Solicited
Licastro, Amanda, Anne Donlan, and Dominique Zino. “Challenging the Boundaries of ePortfolio Scholarship.” The Journal of Interactive Technology and Pedagogy. Issue 10. Nov, 2016. https://jitp.commons.gc.cuny.edu/introduction-issue-10/
Licastro, Amanda. “Exploring New Media.” Writing True: The Art and Craft of Creative Non-Fiction. Contributor. Authors Sondra Perl and Mimi Schwartz. Cengage: Feb, 2013.
Licastro, Amanda, Miller, Benjamin, and Belli, Jill. “Crowdsourcing Disciplinary Data: The Process Of Building The Writing Studies Tree.” Post solicited for the Gayle Morris Sweetland Digital Rhetoric Collaborative blog carnival on “Dealing with Data Digitally.” November 27, 2013. http://www.digitalrhetoriccollaborative.org/2013/11/27/crowdsourcing-disciplinary-data-the-process-of-building-the-writing-studies-tree/
In Progress
Licastro, Amanda. “The Past, Present, and Future of Social Annotation.” Digital Reading and Writing in Composition Studies. Routledge 2018.
Licastro, Amanda and Ben Miller. Composition as Big Data. Under review.
DIGITAL PROJECTS
Writing Studies Tree 2011-present
Co-founder and project manager for open-access, crowdsourced database of scholarly relationships within writing studies, composition/rhetoric and related academic fields. http://writingstudiestree.org/
Stevenson Literary Magazine Present
Technical advisor and WordPress manager for student-run online literary magazine The Greenspring Review. Oversee 7 student editorial interns and manage the design, maintenance, and hosting of the website.
http://greenspringreview.org/
CUNY Digital Humanities Initiative 2011-2015
Co-directed with Matthew K. Gold. Organized speaker series and workshops. Maintained website, social media, and contact list.
English Student Association Website 2013-2015
Co-founder Paul Herbert. Built and maintained a website used by over 500 students in the English Program at the Graduate Center, CUNY.
GRANTS and AWARDS
Awards and Fellowships
Paul Fortier Award 2017
Awarded by a special committee of the ADHO in acknowledgement of an outstanding paper presented by an early career scholar at the Digital Humanities conference https://adho.org/awards/paul-fortier-prize
Innovative Teaching with Technology Award 2017
Awarded by a committee at Stevenson University to acknowledge innovative uses of technology across the university. Colleagues familiar with my work in the school of Humanities and Social Sciences nominated me.
Calder Dissertation Award in Digital Humanities 2016
Awarded by a committee of faculty members at the Graduate Center, CUNY. https://gcenglish.commons.gc.cuny.edu/2016/congratulations-english-program-prize-winners/
Kairos Service Award 2015
Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy.
Rewarding “activities that promote excellent computers and writing pedagogy, theory, and community building.” With Ben Miller and Jill Belli, for the Writing Studies Tree.
The Diana Colbert Innovative Teaching Prize 2013
The Diana Colbert Innovative Teaching Prize “honors excellence in course design in three areas close to Diana’s heart: nineteenth-century literature and culture, African American literature and Africana studies, and politics and literature.”
Research Grants
Stevenson SEED Grant 2017
This grant is intended to support start-up projects at Stevenson University. A committee of deans from across the disciplines determines the winners. The award was in the amount of $10,000 for my project “Teaching Empathy Through Virtual Reality.”
Faculty Research Grant 2017
An award in the amount of $2,500 was granted for summer research by Stevenson University.
Summer Research Award 2014
The Graduate Center, CUNY. $4000.
For dissertation research.
Doctoral Student Research Grant. 2014
The Graduate Center, CUNY. $1,000.
For dissertation research.
Provost’s Digital Innovation Grant 2014
The Graduate Center, CUNY. $4,000.
With Ben Miller, for the Writing Studies Tree.
Provost’s Digital Innovation Grant 2013
The Graduate Center, CUNY. $8,000.
With Ben Miller and Jill Belli, for the Writing Studies Tree.
Provost’s Digital Innovation Grant 2012
The Graduate Center, CUNY. $2,000.
With Jill Belli and Ben Miller, for the Writing Studies Tree.
Tuition Fellowship
Digital Humanities Winter Institute. 2013
Tuition Fellowship
Digital Humanities Summer Institute. 2012
THATcamp Fellowship
THATcamp New England. 2010
PRESENTATIONS
Conference Presentations
“Teaching Empathy Through Virtual Reality.” Digital Humanities. Montreal. Aug. 2017.
“Connecting analogue annotations to digital literacy practices.” Society for Textual Scholarship. University of Maryland. May 2018.
“Teaching Empathy Through Virtual Reality.” Northeast Modern Language Association. Baltimore, MD. Nov. 2017
“Working Out Loud: Online Identity Building, Digital Networking, and Professional Development.” Modern Language Association (MLA). Philadelphia, PA. Jan, 2017.
“Acknowledging Boundary Conditions: Opening the Black Box of Creating Access to Digitized Collections.” Modern Language Association (MLA). Philadelphia, PA. Jan, 2017.
“Demystifying the Job Market: Taking Action towards Transparency through Data and Narrative.” Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC). Houston. April 2016.
“Experiments and Evidence: A Data-Driven Approach to the Humanities.” Modern Language Association (MLA). Austin, TX. Jan, 2016.
“The Writing Studies Tree: An Academic Genealogy.” The Paul D. Lack Scholars’ Showcase: An Across Disciplines Conference. Stevenson University. Stevenson, MD. February 26, 2016.
“Transforming the Dissertation: Models, Questions, and Next Steps.” HASTAC 2015. East Lansing, MI. May 2015
“Building Connections across DH and Computers & Writing: A HASTAC/C&W Simulcast/Cross-Conference Dialog.” HASTAC 2015. East Lansing, MI. May 2015
“Disciplinary Adventures: Data, Making, and Risk at the Intersections of Composing and the Digital Humanities.” Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC). Tampa, FL. March 2015.
“What Does It Mean to Publish? New Forms of Scholarly Communication.” Modern Language Association (MLA). Vancouver. Jan, 2015.
“A Decade in Digital Literacy: a Case-Study of Student Writing in Online Open Spaces.” Association for Authentic, Experiential and Evidence-Based Learning (AAEEBL). Boston. July 2014.
“Opening Up: How Information Technologies Alter Composition Research Methodologies.” Conference on College Composition and Communication. Indianapolis, IN. March 2014.
“Digital Humanities from the Ground Up.” Modern Language Association Conference. Chicago, IL. Jan. 2014.
“Blogging in the TYC?: Pedagogical Strategies for Integrating Online Writing in Literature Courses.” Transitions and Transactions II: Literature and Creative Writing Pedagogies Conference. New York, NY. April 2014.
“Forum on Digital Initiatives and Fellowships.” CUNY Graduate Center Archival Research Conference. September, 2014.
“Enabling Advances in Digital Humanities: GC Provost’s Digital Innovation Grants.” 12th Annual CUNY IT Conference, New York, NY. December 2013.
“The Writing Studies Tree: Coding Composition Genealogies.” Computers & Writing. Frostburg, MD. June 2013.
“Disciplinary Data on Display: Visualizing Keywords in CompPile, Dissertations, and the Writing Studies Tree.” Conference on College Composition and Communication. Las Vegas. March 2013.
“Composing Genealogies: A Family Tree of Composition/Rhetoric.” Featured Session A.37. Conference on College Composition and Communication. St. Louis, MO. March 2012.
“What Works? Integrating Culture into First-Year English and Foreign Language Courses.” Modern Language Association. Seattle, WA. Jan. 2012.
“Introducing the Writing Studies Tree: An Interactive Composition & Rhetoric Archive.”11th Annual CUNY IT Conference, New York, NY. November 2012.
“Open Door, Open Source: Toward a Sustainable Future in WPA Training.” Working Outside the Framework: Bottom-Up Training for Future WPAs. Writing Program Administrators Conference. Baton Rouge, LA. June 2011.
“Bursting the Bubble.” College English Association Conference. Pittsburgh, PA. 2009.
“Five Minutes of Fame.” BMCC TechDay. New York, NY. Feb. 2012.
“Reconstructing Gender in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night.” DePaul University Research Colloquium in English & Writing. Chicago, IL. 2007.
Invited Talks and Workshops
“Bringing the History of Social Annotation into the Future.” HaSS Diverse Perspectives Forum. Stevenson University. Sept. 2017.
“The Multimodal Millennium.” University of Virginia. Scholars Lab Speaker Series. April 2016. http://scholarslab.org/events/speaker-amanda-licastro/
Digital Pedagogy and Networked Learning. Co-taught a five-day intensive learning camp for academics with Lee Skallerup Bessette. Humanities Intensive Learning and Teaching (HILT). Indianapolis. June 2016. http://www.dhtraining.org/hilt2016/course/digital-pedagogy-networked-learning/
“Where a Masters from DePaul Can Take You: An Alumni Perspective.” Featured speaker at the annual DePaul English Program Conference. DePaul University, Chicago. May 8th 2015.
“Digital Humanities and Digital Publishing.” NFAIS Humanities Roundtable 2014. National Federation of Abstracting and Information Services. New York, NY. September, 2014.
“What is a Dissertation? New Models, Methods and Media.” Part of the CUNY Future Initiative project, co-sponsored by HASTAC, CUNY DHI, and PhD Lab in Digital Knowledge at Duke University. New York, NY. Oct. 2014.
https://www.hastac.org/blogs/cathy-davidson/2014/08/28/what-dissertation-new-models-methods-media
(Also live-streamed and live tweeted at #remixthediss)
“Designing Digital Projects.” University of Findley, Ohio. July 2014.
“How to Start an Academic Blog (Parts I&II).” The Silberman School of Social Work at Hunter College. New York, NY. November 2013.
Teaching Workshop. The Pipeline Program. Graduate Center, CUNY, New York, NY. Twice yearly: 2011-present.
Intersession Teaching Workshop. The Graduate Center, CUNY, New York, NY Summer and Winter intersessions, 2012-present.
TEACHING and PEDAGOGICAL CONSULTING
Stevenson University, English Department, Stevenson, MD 2015-present
Assistant Professor. Full-time faculty member focusing on digital publishing, media history, and composition. Courses: Composition and Writing with Sources; Remix: Digital Media and Literature; Introduction to Digital Publishing; The Cyborg Apocalypse: Cybernetic Technology in Literature; Publishing From Gutenberg to Google Books.
New York University, Gallatin School of Individualized Study, New York, NY
2013-2015
Adjunct Instructor. Courses: First-Year Writing Seminar: “Thinking and Writing Through New Media;” First-Year Research Seminar: “Robots, Apes, and Electric Sheep: A digital approach to investigating our cybernetic culture.”
Macaulay Honors College, CUNY New York, NY 2012-15
Instructional Technology Fellow, helped professors across the disciplines integrate technology into their courses in pedagogically sound ways. Built and maintained course sites, led workshops for students, gave demonstrations for fellows, and organized cultural events.
Borough of Manhattan County Community College, CUNY, New York, NY 2010-12
Adjunct Instructor of English. Courses: English 101: Composition;
English 201: Introduction to Literature.
Marywood University, Scranton, PA 2008-10
Adjunct Instructor. Courses: Early American Literature I and II: “Canon Wars;” World Literature: “An Epic Quest;” Composition: “Riots and Revolutions.”
Wilkes University, Wilkes-Barre, PA 2008-10
Adjunct Instructor. Courses: Composition for Pharmacy Majors;
Early American Literature.
King’s College, Wilkes-Barre, PA 2008-10
Adjunct Instructor. Courses: Writing Skills (basic writing); Composition.
Harold Washington Community College, Chicago, IL 2007-08
Supplemental Instructor. Writing Skills and Research Writing.
The Learning Bank, Baltimore, MD 2003-05
Adult Literacy Center, SumServe Fellow (via Loyola College).
Teaching Assistant and Tutor across the curriculum.
PROFESSIONAL and ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICE
National
Modern Language Executive Committee
2018-Present
Journal of Interactive Technology and Pedagogy (JITP)
2012-present
Founding member of the Editorial Collective,
Lead Editor Issue 10,
Short Forms Editor,
Communications Committee
Article reviewer
Book Reviewer Purdue University Press. Reviewed proposal for an academic book on digital humanities scholarship.
Sage Publishing. Reviewed proposal for an academic book on digital humanities scholarship.
Conference Reviewer
Reviewed submissions to the Digital Humanities 2017 and 2018 conferences.
THATcamp Digital Writing, New York, NY
Conference organizer and co-director. 2014.
digitalwriting2014.thatcamp.org
Stevenson University
English Department Present
Digital Studies Team
Department Assessment Team
University-Wide Present
Humanities and Social Sciences Strategic Planning Committee Communications Assessment Team
Technology Committee
The Graduate Center, CUNY
CUNY Graduate Center
English Program Executive Committee. 2014-15
Information Technology Committee. 2011-2013
Course Assessment Committee. 2011-14
Graduate Center Composition and Rhetoric Community
Co-chair with Andrew Luchessi in charge of organizing weekly meetings,
guest speakers and digital presence. 2013-14
Doctoral Students’ Council
At-Large Representative. 2012-14.
Facilitator for Certification Program, New York.
Led training sessions of effective online pedagogy for The School of Professional Studies, CUNY-wide, via Blackboard. 2012-14.
PROFESSIONAL MEMBERSHIPS
Association for Computing in the Humanities (ACH)
Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC)
Council of Writing Program Administrators (CWPA)
Modern Language Association (MLA)
National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE)