People sections

Letter from the Chair

Derek William Attig

History

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Contact Info

Specializations / Research Interest(s)

  • Comparative Women's & Gender History
  • Print & Popular Cultures
  • United States since 1830
  • Science & Technology Studies

Research Description

  • Derek Attig is a Ph.D. candidate in History at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Derek's dissertation, "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 explores the rise of an idea about community--as "common consciousness" produced by shared infrastructure and shared culture--and the fate of that idea in a century often marked by discrimination, dislocaton, and distrust.

    During the summer of 2012, Derek served as a Google Policy Fellow at the American Library Association's Office for Information Technology Policy, researching and writing a report designed to help libraries adapt to new technologies and emerging networks. Derek is currently an OITP Research Associate, continuing work on that report (which will be published in 2013) and on other aspects of OITP's portfolio.

    Derek is also the creator and editor of bookmobility.org--a website dedicated to exploring information in motion--and a contributor to LibraryLab, a collaboration between Boing Boing and the American Library Association, and Book Riot.

    Derek is currently at work on an article about You've Got Mail (1998) titled "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

  • Graduate College Dissertation Completion Fellowship (2012-2013) | University of Illinois
  • 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
  • Twentieth-Century History Fellowship (2009-2010) | Massachusetts Historical Society
  • HASTAC Scholarship (2009-2010; 2010-2011; 2011-2012) | Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology Advanced Collaboratory
  • Joseph Ward Swain Seminar Paper Prize (2009) | Department of History, University of Illinois
  • Women's & Gender Studies Leadership Award (2006) | Beloit College
  • Sereno Taylor Merrill Prize in History (2006) | Beloit College

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.

Website Articles

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.