Letter from the Chair
Derek William Attig
History
Contact Info
-
Address: 309 Gregory Hall
810 S. Wright St.
810 S Wright
M/C 466
Urbana, IL 61801 - Telephone: No Phone listed
- Email: dattig2@illinois.edu
- CV: Download my C.V.
- Visit Website
Specializations / Research Interest(s)
- United States since 1830
- Print & Popular Cultures
- Comparative Women's & Gender History
- Science & Technology Studies
Research Description
Derek Attig is a Ph.D. candidate in History at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His dissertation--tentatively titled "Here Comes the Bookmobile: Public Culture and the Shape of Belonging"--examines the roles played by bookmobiles in imagining, forming, and contesting communities in the twentieth-century United States. In particular, it tells the story of the rise of an idea about community--as a "common consciousness" produced by shared cultural and physical infrastructures--and the fate of that idea in a century often marked by discrimination, dislocaton, and distrust.
During the summer of 2012, Derek will serve as a Google Policy Fellow at the American Library Association's Office for Information Technology Policy.
Derek is also currently at work on an article about You've Got Mail (1998) called "Retail, Reluctance, and the Romance of Big-Box Bookselling."
Education
- M.A., History - University of Illinois, 2009
- B.A., History and Women's Studies - Beloit College, 2006
Distinctions / Awards
- Google Policy Fellowship (2012) | Google & American Library Association
- IPRH Prize for Research in the Humanities (2012) | Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities
- William C. Widenor Teaching Fellowship (2011) | Department of History, University of Illinois
- John G. & Evelyn H. Heiligenstein Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching (2011) | Department of History, University of Illinois
- Katzman-Yetman Graduate Paper Prize (2011) | Mid-America American Studies Association
- Joseph Ward Swain Seminar Paper Prize (2009) | Department of History, University of Illinois
- Sereno Taylor Merrill Prize in History (2006) | Beloit College
- Women's & Gender Studies Leadership Award (2006) | Beloit College
Grants
- Twentieth-Century History Fellowship (2009-2010) | Massachusetts Historical Society
- HASTAC Scholarship (2009-2010; 2010-2011) | Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology Advanced Collaboratory
External URLs
Courses
- HIST 498: Information in Motion (Instructor, Spring 2012)
- HIST 281: Constructing Race in America (TA, Spring 2011)
- HIST 173: U.S. since 1877 - Advanced Composition (TA, Spring 2010)
- HIST 170: U.S. to 1877 - Advanced Composition (TA, Fall 2009)
- HIST 274: U.S. and the World since 1917 (TA, Spring 2009)
- HIST 142: Western Civilization since 1660 (TA, Fall 2008)
Publications
Book Contributions
- Hetrick, Ashley, and Derek W. Attig. "Sitting Pretty: Fat Bodies, Classroom Desks, and Academic Excess." The Fat Studies Reader. . Ed. Esther Rothblum and Sondra Solovay. New York: New York University Press, 2009.
Reviews
- Attig, Derek. Rev. of Swindled: The Dark History of Food Fraud, from Poisoned Candy to Counterfeit Coffee, by Bee Wilson. Enterprise & Society 12.3 (2011): 435-437.