Digital Dissertations

Traditionally, a text-based narrative dissertation has served as the signature capstone element of the doctoral research degree in history. Developments in digital publication platforms and digital history methods have increasingly made it possible for graduate students to produce a culminating work of historical scholarship that does not take the form of a narrative dissertation. The professional legitimacy of digital forms and methods was established in 2023, when the American Historical Association (AHA), the leading professional association for historians in the United States, published “Guidelines on Broadening the Definition of Historical Scholarship.” Digital scholarship beyond the dissertation has also been recognized by the AHA as qualifying academic historians for promotion and tenure since 2015.

The History and Art History Department at George Mason University welcomes dissertation projects that take a range of digital forms. This option allows students to choose a form for their dissertation that fits their sources, methods and argument so long as it upholds the profession’s standards for scholarly work. The department has developed a set of guidelines to be followed by those who pursue a digital dissertation.

Students can learn the methods and skills required to develop a digital dissertation in classes exploring digital history, data analysis, and spatial history offered by GMU faculty. Those who opt for a digital dissertation can find further support at RRCHNM, the internationally recognized digital history center that is part of the Department of History and Art History. To develop the skills and form for a digital dissertation students can also apply for funding from RRCHNM, including a summer fellowship. The final form for the dissertation project is agreed in consultation with a student’s dissertation advisor and dissertation committee. Multiple GMU faculty with experience in digital methods and creating digital scholarship available to serve on a student’s dissertation committee.

GMU students who have successfully completed digital dissertations have published reflections on their experiences in Perspectives (a publication of the AHA) and in Debates in Digital Humanities 2023. Those students have gone on to secure postdoctoral scholarship, positions as professors and leadership roles in digital humanities centers.

The department groups digital dissertations into two broad categories:

1. Fully digital dissertation

A fully digital dissertation combines digital methods with a digital form of publication.

Examples completed by GMU students

2. Hybrid dissertation

A hybrid dissertation combines digital methods with a print manuscript as the primary product. The digital methods and analysis can be presented within the text, with static images of visualizations, and as online companions that support and supplement the text.

Examples completed by GMU students

  • A print dissertation using digital methods with online digital components

    Janelle Legg, “With Eloquent Fingers He Preached”: The Protestant Episcopal Mission to the Deaf,” (2021); digital component - “Mapping Deaf Missions,” https://scholarship.rrchnm.org/legg-dissertation/.

  • A print dissertation using digital methods

    Greta Swain, “Potomac Networks: Waterways, Commerce, and Enslavement in the George Mason Family, 1700–1828,” (2023); digital methods,  https://gretaswain.org/research/.

 

GMU faculty also publish peer-reviewed historical monographs in digital forms that provide additional examples of digital scholarship.