Deborah Siegel

A PhD Gets Wired, or How I Traded the Podium for the Mouse
By Deborah Siegel, fellow, the Woodhull Institute; author of Sisterhood, Interrupted: From Radical Women to Grrls Gone Wild; and blogger at Girl with Pen
Technological innovation can transform a culture, but it can also transform a career. It did mine. When I started out as a PhD student in English and American Literature at the University of Wisconsin--Madison, I could hardly imagine that fourteen years later I’d be calling myself “Girl with Pen” in public, living in New York City, and writing for The Guardian. That pen, really, is a keyboard. But I like mixing it up.


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	Kortney Ryan Ziegler

Academic Blogging as Intercultural Exchange
By Kortney Ryan Ziegler, doctoral student of African American Studies at Northwestern University
The Internet has always fascinated me. The possibility of communicating in real time with people beyond my immediate environment, as well as the boundless knowledge, ideas, and experiences that permeate the “virtual” public domain of cyberspace, have driven me to employ the web to its full capacity. As a scholar studying black queer female performance art, I depend on the Internet, both as a research tool and as a new performative venue. As a filmmaker producing art in the age of digital cinema, I need the Internet to connect with other filmmakers as well as to exhibit my work to a world audience. As an activist, I rely on the Internet for space to express my identity, articulate my politics, and speak my truths. In using the Internet for these pursuits, I have found new ways to support and supplement my academic work; more importantly, I have found new spaces for challenging racism, sexism, and homophobia.

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