120+ HASTAC Scholars On the Way!

It's the time of the year when we will be sending out the letters of congratulations and welcome to a new group of HASTAC Scholars.   There are graduate and some undergraduate students, all nominated by faculty members and others located at universities, who then commit themselves to a year of translating their research and the work of their institutions into a public forum.  Sometimes, the conversation is highly specialized and theoretical.   Other times, it is broadly open to a public.  Sometimes it operates on the level of scholarship and sometimes on the level of "citizen scholarship" or the "public intellectual," where the key to activism and community participation are palpable and important.

This year, our Director, Fiona Barnett, herself a doctoral student in the Literature Program at Duke, will be welcoming the scholars and telling you about some of the Forums they will conduct in the year ahead.  I'm anticipating by simply saying there will be over 120 scholars this year.     Italics and boldface for that announcement!   120 scholars isn't just a number, it is a movement.  It's not just a movement, it is a glimpse into the future of the academy.    The HASTAC Scholars span all the fields that are part of the unwieldy haystack/HASTAC acronym: humanities, arts, sciences (including social sciences, of course), and technology.   Many embody work across those fields in their research.  It's a new configuration, and it is exciting to think about how they will shape their year working together, as a network, as well as at various conferences throughout the year.

Our new "HASTAC @ " program will be using our calendaring and messaging systems on this new site (it has many social networking functions that, in our next phase, we plan to make more visible and usable) to get out the word whenever groups of HASTAC Scholars or other HASTAC members will be at a conference together.  For the HASTAC Scholars who will be liveblogging and micro-blogging events, we are even preparing a little "kit":   an official HASTAC t-shirt (being designed as a type), a HASTAC eco-friendly bookbag, HASTAC buttons, a HASTAC trifold information pamphet, and a HASTAC video FlipCam (that one comes with a mailing envelope, to be sent back to the Mother Ship after the event).  We hope the HASTAC Scholars will get to meet one another virtually (of course) but also face-to-face at these HASTAC @ events and we hope they will get to meet others as well.

It's not just a network . . . it's a movement that exists in the world and in communities.   We're ramping up for another busy year.  I can't wait!