Prof. Cathy Davidson, John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute Professor of interdisciplinary Studies and Ruth F. DeVarney Professor of English

Cathy N. Davidson’s main contributions have been in the areas of history and theory of technology, including history of the book, history of industrialism and post industrialism, and history of new technologies and society. As Vice Provost of Interdisciplinary Studies, innovative new cross-campus technologies for research and teaching were part of charge and she has had an impact in this area both at duke and nationally, including as a leader in national policy on digital media and learning. Her interest in issues of race, gender, and sexuality cross all her work, from eighteenth-century literature to envisioning the future of digital media and learning institutions in a digital age.

Mr. Ken Wissoker, Editorial Director, Duke University Press

Ken Wissoker is the Editorial Director of Duke University Press, acquiring books in anthropology, cultural studies, and social theory; globalization and post-colonial theory; Asian, African, and America studies; music, film and television; race, gender and sexuality, and other areas in the humanities, social sciences, media, and the arts. He moved to Durham to join the Press as an Acquisitions Editor in 1991; became Editor-in-Chief in 1997, before being named Editorial Director in 2005.

Two of his books, Richard Klein’s Cigarettes are Sublime and Walt Odets’s In the Shadow of the Epidemic, were named by the New York Times as books of the year. Among the authors whose books he has published are Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Judith Halberstam, Charles Taylor, Joan Scott, Lauren Berlant, Brian Massumi, Arjun Appadurai, Aihwa Ong, Kuan-Hsing Chen and Lawrence Grossberg.