Project Examples – Next-Generation Dissertations

Scholars have created so many creative, high-impact projects. We’ve gathered a small sampling of projects to explore.

Note that all scholars are listed with their degree-granting institution, not their current institutional affiliation.

Featured Scholars

We interviewed several scholars to find out more about their process and experience creating innovative dissertations. Here’s more information about each of their projects:

A.D. Carson, Clemson University; Owning My Masters (rap album)

Watch the full interview of A.D. Carson (in conversation with Chris Flanagan and Glenn Wright)

Sonia Estima, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Multimodal Meaning Making (videos and writing)

Video introduction of Sonia Estima’s dissertation, Multimodal Meaning Making

Watch the full interview of Sonia Estima, Ivan Gonzalez-Soto, Justin Schell, and Anna Williams (in conversation with Katina Rogers and Chris Flanagan)

Ivan Gonzalez-Soto, University of California, Merced; Thirsty for Change // Sed por Cambio (comic)

Comic showing a woman with brown skin and black hair raising her fist, and a child with similar features holding a sign that says "VOTA CARMEN DELAGUA" — *Detail from cover of T*hirsty for Change // Sed por Cambio. *While this is not a dissertation, it is an excellent example of a scholarly/engaged comic by someone earlier in their graduate school trajectory.*

Watch the full interview of Sonia Estima, Ivan Gonzalez-Soto, Justin Schell, and Anna Williams (in conversation with Katina Rogers and Chris Flanagan)

Jesse Merandy, The Graduate Center, CUNY; Vanishing Leaves (digital game)

Watch the full interview of Jesse Merandy (in conversation with Chris Flanagan)

Justin Schell, University of Minnesota; We Rock Long Distance (documentary film)

Watch the full interview of Sonia Estima, Ivan Gonzalez-Soto, Justin Schell, and Anna Williams (in conversation with Katina Rogers and Chris Flanagan)

Anna Williams, University of Iowa; My Gothic Dissertation (podcast)

Stylized text on decorative background: My Gothic Dissertation, By Anna Williams — *Screenshot and link to episodes of* My Gothic Dissertation by Anna Williams

Watch the full interview of Sonia Estima, Ivan Gonzalez-Soto, Justin Schell, and Anna Williams (in conversation with Katina Rogers and Chris Flanagan)

Other Excellent Project Examples

Louis Bury, The Graduate Center, CUNY; Exercises in Criticism (uses rules and procedures to write poetic and autobiographical criticism about works of literary constraint; intro/essay here)
Rachel Daniell, The Graduate Center, CUNY; The Afterlives of Government Documents: Information Labor, Archival Power, and the Visibility of U.S. Human Rights Violations in the “War on Terror” (Video; see site at New Media Lab)
Jade E. Davis, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; Vintage Black Beauty (archival remix usingtumblr)
Dwayne Dixon, Duke University; Endless Question, (Scalar)
Gregory T. Donovan, The Graduate Center, CUNY; MyDigitalFootprint.ORG: Young People and the Proprietary Ecology of Everyday Data (website)
Jojo Karlin, The Graduate Center, CUNY; Yours Sincerely, Virginia Woolf: Virginia Woolf’s Poetics of Letter Writing (book of drawings)
Amanda Licastro, The Graduate Center, CUNY; Digitocentrism (blog)
Simon Orpana, McMaster University; Showdown! Making Modern Unions (graphic novel)
Kay Sohini, Stony Brook University; Drawing Unbelonging (comic)
Nick Sousanis, Teachers College, Columbia University; Unflattening, published by Harvard University Press (see also his Dissertation blog)
Dani Spinosa, York University; Generic Pronoun (a WordPress blog that would become the foundation for their doctoral thesis work; reflection here)
Joey Lopez, University of Texas, Austin; The Anthropologist’s Guide to the 21st Century: A Look at Online and Offline Car Culture in Central Texas (blog)
Melissa Dollman, University of North Carolina; Changing Lanes: A Reanimation of Shell Oil’s Carol Lane (interactive multimedia website)

Collections

Remix the Diss: Crowdsourced honor roll of innovative dissertations http://bit.ly/remixthediss-models
Public event — #remixthediss Panelist Biographies (2014)
Digital Dissertations and Capstone Projects at GC CUNY: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_digital/
Open Access Theses and Dissertations
Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations — note that they have an annual symposium and awards available for digital dissertation creators
Artistic Doctorates in Europe — a project investigating Practice as Research inquiries within research-level degrees in Dance and Performance
For a historical record of innovative dissertation work, see this early directory from Matthew Kirschenbaum (from 1999) — focuses on electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs)

NOTE: There are many more projects than those included on this page! Want to add something to this list? Suggest it here.