Dr. Kirsten C. Uszkalo is a specialist in seventeenth-century literature, early modern cultural studies, and women's writing and the author of a number of scholarly articles on witchcraft, possession, and digital culture. She is the lead of the Witches in Early Modern England Project and the Founding Editor of Preternature, Critical and Historical Studies in the Preternatural (Penn State Press).
Dr. Uszkalo is an active member in a number of national and international Digital Humanities projects, societies, and conferences, a regular participant in Humanities conferences and colloquia and workshops, and an enthusiastic and challenging teacher.
| 2006 | Ph.D., English University of Alberta |
| 2000 | M.A., English University of Alberta |
| 1999 | Post-baccalaureate, English Simon Fraser University |
| 1996 | B.A., English Simon Fraser University |
| 2015, 2016 | Instructor Athabasca University |
| 2013 | Sessional Instructor University of Alberta Edmonton, AB |
| 2009-2010 | Assistant Professor and Post-Doctoral Fellow Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign |
| 2008-2009 | Assistant Professor (LTA) Simon Fraser University Burnaby, BC |
| 2007-2008 | Assistant Professor (LTA) St. Francis Xavier University Antigonish, NS |
| 2000-2007 | Primary Instructor University of Alberta Edmonton, AB |
Bewitched and Bedevilled. (Palgrave MacMillian Press, 2015)
Being Bewitched. (Truman University Press, 2017)
Witches in Early Modern England: A Digital Humanities project for Unveiling Witchcraft Narratives. Published. (online: )
“Capturing Magics: The Witches of Early Modern England Project as Micro-historical and Visualization Research,” Preternature. 3:1 (2014): 190-204.
“Medical Theories on Malefic Possession: from bewitchment to anti-NMDAR encephalitis,” Journal of Religion in Europe 5:3 (2012): 323-348.
[With] Geoffrey Rockwell, Calen Henry, Erik deJong, Shannon Lucky, Mihaela Illovan, Lucio Gutierrez, Sean Gouglas, Patricia Boechler and Eleni Stroulia. "Campus Mysteries: Serious Walking Around." Loading…, 7:12 (2013).
"The which is also new": Accessibility, Economics, and Electronic in Early Modern Women’s Writing. Media: Culture: Pedagogy 15:01/02 (2011)
"Cunning, Cozening, and Queens in The Merry Wives of Windsor," Shakespeare 6:1 (2010):20-33.
[with Susan Liepert] "Clapping, Pinching, and Sucking: The English Witch's Familiar as Interface Model," Digital Studies / Le champ numérique 1:3 (2009)
"The Memoirs of Dolly Morton: Possible Source for James Joyce's Ulysses?" Notes and Queries 55:4 (2008):1-5.
[with Stan Ruecker] "Binding the Electronic Book: Design Features for Bibliophiles," Visual Design, 40:1 (2007): 50-69.
"Selling Cherries, Buying Water: Reworking Female Sexual Economics in Thomas Middleton’s A Chaste Maid in Cheapside." Luminarium (2001).
"Embodied Spiritualities, Salacious Biographies, and the Hog-Faced Prophetical Witch," in The Devil in Society in the Premodern World, ed. Richard Raiswell. (Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies: University of Toronto Press, 2012), 283-309.
[with Darren James Harkness] "Consider the Source: Critical Considerations of the Medium of Social Media" From Text to Txting: New Media in the Classroom. Edited by Paul Budra and Clint Burnham. (Bloomington. Indiana UP, 2012), 15-42.
"Anger and Demon Possession: A Social Cognitive Model with Particular Reference to Anglo-Saxon and Early English Possessions," Studies in Early Medicine, (Oxford: Archaeopress 2010), 5-18.
"Artless Tales as Literary Tapestry," Afterword. Artless Tales. Anna Maria Porter. Ed Lesley Robertson et al. (Edmonton: Juvenilia Press. 2003), 131-36.
”The British Witch,” The Ashgate Encyclopedia of Literary and Cinematic Monsters, ed. Jeffrey Weinstock, (Farnham: Ashgate Publishing. 2014), 596-600.
"The British Wizard,” The Ashgate Encyclopedia of Literary and Cinematic Monsters, ed. Jeffrey Weinstock (Farnham: Ashgate Publishing. 2014), 600-603.
"Dangerous Women, and Music in Seventeenth Century Broadsides" The Journal of British studies.: 55: 2 (2016): 420-421
"Sidney Sondergard's Sharpening Her Pen: Strategies of Rhetorical Violence" [review], 2016, 35:2 (2004): 612-613.
"Writing Up the Rite: Impressions of Joyce 2000: The Right to Write: XVII International James Joyce Symposium," James Joyce Broadsheet, 57:1 (October 2000)
[with John Simpson, Geoffrey Rockwell, Ryan Chartier, Stéfan Sinclair, Susan Brown, and Amy Dyrbye]. “Text Mining Tools in the Humanities: An Analysis Framework,” Journal of Digital Humanities. 2:3 (2013)
[with Dan Cohen et al.] “Data Mining with Criminal Intent Final White Paper.”
[with Tanya Clement, Sara Steger, and John Unsworth] "How Not to Read a Million Books," hosted by John Unsworth (Dean and Professor, Graduate School of Library and Information Sciences, and Director, Illinois Informatics Institute, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign): . Originally read at Harvard University, October, 2008.
| 2015-present | Board member, Preternature: Critical and Historical Studies on the Preternatural (PN) Penn State Press |
| 2010-2015 | Founding Editor Preternature: Critical and Historical Studies on the Preternatural (PN) Penn State Press |
| 2008-2010 | Associate Editor Digital Studies / Le champ numérique |
| 2000-2005 | Editor-in-Chief nasty: the brattiest academics of the web |
| 2000-2003 | Editorial Board Juvenilia Press |
| 2011 | 6th Nebraska Digital Workshop Early Career Scholar Award $1000.00 |
| 2011 | Principal Investigator: Witches in Early Modern England Project. Research and Development RPT/ASE/AppScan IBM Software Group, Rational Requested $10, 000 over 1 year. Funded $10.000. |
| 2009 | Principal Investigator, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC). Information, Text, and Sound Technology. "Witches in Early Modern England (WEME) Project." Requested $50,000 over 1 year. Funded $50,000. |
| 2009 | Alliance for Digital Humanities Organizations (ADHO) Award |
| 2008 | Best Idea for Improving a Current Tool TADA Research Evaluation eXchange (T-REX, McMaster University) |
| 2006 | University of Victoria (British Columbia) Humanities Computing & Media Centre Graduate Student Award |
| 2004 | Sarah Nettie Christie Graduate Award (University of Alberta) |
| 2002 | Mary Louise Imrie Graduate Award (University of Alberta) |
| 2001 | James F. Forrest Graduate Award in Renaissance Literature (University of Alberta) |
| 2007 | Society for Digital Humanities (SDH/SEMI) Travel Bursary |
| 2003 | Graduate Internship Tuition Supplement |
| 2003 | Sarah Nettie Christie Travel Bursary |
| 2003 | Attending to Women Travel Grant |
| 2003 | Graduate Research Assistantship Scholarship |
| 2002 | Graduate Internship Tuition Supplement |
| 2000 | Sarah Nettie Christie Travel Bursary |
"The Great Electric Show & Dance: Adventures in the evolution of e-readers and e-research" Teaching and Research using Technology in the Humanities: Virtual communities in the Humanities 2009 Symposium. University of Victoria, British Columbia. April 2009.
"Titillating Trends and Tools: Visualization and Research in DH" Farleigh Dickinson University. Vancouver, British Columbia, March 25, 2009
"Cyberculture." Department of English, University of Gloucester, UK. December 2004.
Upcoming: Kule Institute for Advanced Study Around The World Conference. University of Alberta, May 2015.
Workshop on Witches; Witches in Early Modern England: A Digital Humanities Project for Unveiling Witchcraft Narratives. Pacific Northwest Renaissance Conference, 2010. Victoria, British Columbia October 21-23 2010.
[Panel with Paul Budra] “Shakespeare and Social Neuroscience.” Shakespeare Association of America, Chicago. April 1-3, 2010.
[with MEMI executive] MEMI Colloquium: Reproducing Dissent in the Medieval and Early Modern Periods. University of Alberta, May 10, 2005.
[with MEMI executive] MEMI Spring Workshop: Is that a Stylus in Your Pocket? Paleography Symposium. University of Alberta, May 11-12, 2005.
[with MEMI executive] Working with Manuscripts from Beowulf to Bacon: MEMI Spring Paleography Workshop, University of Alberta, April 11, 2005.
[with Sylvia Brown et al.] “Women and the Missionary Position? Gendering Encounters with the Ethnic Other in Quaker and Catholic Writings.” Attending to Early Modern Women: Structures and Subjectivities (Centre for Renaissance and Baroque Studies, University of Maryland). College Park, Maryland. 6–8 November 2003.
[With Simpson John; Rockwell, Geoffrey; Sinclair, Stéfan; Brown, Susan; Dyrbye, Amy; Chartier, Ryan.] “Framework for Testing Text Analysis and Mining Tools.” Poster presented at the Digital Humanities 2013 conference at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in Lincoln, Nebraska, USA., July, 2013
[ with] J. Simpson, S. Sinclair, A. Dyrbye, R. Chartier, M. Radzikowska, and R. Willson] “Just What Do They Do? On the use of text analysis in the humanities. CSDH/SCHN 2013 Conference at the HSSFC Congress at the University of Victoria, BC.
[With Geoffrey Rockwell et al.] “Panel on TAPoR 2.0: Redesigning Around” SDH/SEMI. Waterloo. May 28th, 2012.
"This Magic Moment: Digital Interactions with Events in Early English Witchcraft." SDH/SEMI. University of New Brunswick, Canada. May 30-June 1, 2011.
"Medicalizing the Malefic: When Emerging Sciences Sustained Witch beliefs" Canadian Society for Renaissance Studies. University of New Brunswick, Canada. May 27-30, 2011.
"The Devil and Mother Shipton: Serendipitous Associations and the MONK Project." Panel: Use Cases Driving the Tool Development in the MONK Project. Digital Humanities 2009. University of Maryland, USA. June 22-25, 2009.
[With Teresa Dobson] "Googling Google Books: Integrated use of Fragmentary Information Display in Google Book Preview of Electronic Books." Digital Humanities 2009. University of Maryland, USA. June 22-25, 2009.
[Poster] "Throwing Bones". T-Rex Poster Cluster. Digital Humanities 2009. University of Maryland, USA. June 22-25, 2009.
[with Stan Ruecker] "With His Tung': In the Search of Early Modern Malefic Sexuality" Canadian Society for Renaissance Studies. May 23-25, 2009.
"What was she Thinking: Ways of Thinking / Ways of Working in a DH Context" SDH/ SEMI. Carleton University, Ottawa. May 25-27, 2009.
[With Stan Ruecker] "Conjuring and Transmogrifying: A Review of Two Digital Tools in the Context of Studying Early Modern Witchcraft Trials" SDH/ SEMI. Carleton University, Ottawa. May 25-27, 2009.
"The Devil Made Me Do Him: Mother Shipton, the Devil, the Witch, and the Prophet." The Devil in Society in the Pre-Modern World, Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, Victoria College, University of Toronto. October 17-18 2008.
[with Stan Ruecker.] “A Book is not a Display: A Theoretical Evolution of the E-Book Reader.” Paper presented in the panel “The Building Blocks of the New Electronic Book” chaired by Ray Siemens at Digital Humanities 2008. Oulu, Finland. June 25-29, 2008.
[with Darren James Harkness]. “Normalizing Identity: The Role of Blogging Software in Creating Digital Identity.” Digital Humanities 2008, Oulu, Finland, June 25-29, 2008.
“Cozening, Cunning, and the Queen: the Representation of Witches, Cunning women, and Fairies in Elizabethan Law, Ephemera, and the Shakespeare’s Merry Wives of Windsor” Canadian Society for Renaissance Studies Congress of the Social Sciences and Humanities, University of British Columbia. British Columbia. May 31-June 2, 2008.
“Data-mining with Flags and Highlighters: Interdisciplinary Pedagogy and the MONK Project” Thinking Beyond Borders: The Promise of Computing for the Humanities, SDH-SEMI 2008. Congress of the Social Sciences and Humanities, University of British Columbia. University of British Columbia June 2-3, 2008.
[with Sara Steger] “Visualizing Patterns: MONK,” [Poster Presentation] MLA Annual Conference, Chicago, Illinois. 27-30, December, 2007.
[with Susan Liepert] “Interface and the Extension of Identity: The Witches in Early-Modern England (WEME) Project.” Bridging Communities: making public knowledge / making knowledge public. SDH/SEMI Annual Conference (Congress). Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. 28-30 May, 2007.
“Reprobate Authority: The Self-Aware Author/Subject of Early Modern Ephemera” Women Reading Writing: Past and Present, Local and Global. Edmonton, Alberta. May 4-6, 2007.
[with Stan Ruecker] "Playing with Witchcraft: Digitizing, Structuring and Visualizing Early Modern English Witchcraft Texts." Rooms of Their Own: Women in the Knowledge Economy and Society (Royal Society). Edmonton, Alberta. 2-4 May, 2007.
“Possession/Obsession: Exorcizing Spiritual Ephemera in Early Modern England.” Pacific Northwest Renaissance Society 2007 Annual Conference. Calgary, Alberta. 27-28 April, 2007.
[with Darren James Harkness] “The Witches in Early Modern England Project” [poster presentation]. Text Encoding Initiative; 2006 Annual Member’s Meeting. Victoria, BC. 27-28 October 2006.
[with Stan Ruecker et al.] “Watch My Moves: From Digital Plays To the Digital Playbook.” Ninth IASTED International Conference on Computers and Advanced Technology in Education (CATE 2006). Lima, Peru. 4-6 October, 2006.
“Inwardly Pricked: Seventeenth-Century English Gallows Confessions as Performances of Christian Piety.” Pacific Northwest Renaissance Society. Banff, Alberta. 5–7 May 2005.
“Wrangling Witches/Fondling their Familiars: Constructing a Database of Early Modern English Witches and Their Spiritual Second Selves.” Medieval and Early Modern Institute (MEMI). Edmonton, Alberta. 8–9 December 2004.
“These and These are the Words of the Radical Milton.” 7th International Milton Symposium. Beaufort, South Carolina. 4–8 June 2002.
“Reworking Female Sexual Economics in Thomas Middleton’s A Chaste Maid in Cheapside.” Pacific Northwest Renaissance Society. Vancouver, British Columbia. 10–12 May 2001.
“Whip Me, Spank Me, and Call Me Dolly.” 17th Annual International James Joyce Symposium. London University, London, UK. 24–30 June 2000.
“Keyhole Hedonism, Literature, and the Throbbing Juvenile Pen.” Association of Canadian College and University Teachers in English (ACCUTE). Edmonton, Alberta. 23–27 May 2000.
“Sex, Death, and the Single Romantic Woman.” Association of Canadian College and University Teachers in English (ACCUTE). Edmonton, Alberta. 23–27 May 2000.
"Practicing the Craft: Alternate Models of Academic Inquiry into the Malefic." CIRCA Series. Canadian Institute for Research Computing. February 17, 2011.
[with Marie Ciavarella] “E-Learning for Historical Studies.” Department of History. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana-Champaign. February 24, 2010.
"Rage and Possession in Early Modern England" A Major Link: Understanding our World Through Culture and Art Series. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Urbana-Champaign. February 15, 2010.
[with Milena Radzikowska] "Varied Visceral Visualizations: Pattern Finding and Prototyping in the WEME project" University of Alberta. Enterprise Square. May 7th, 2009."Teaching First Year English" Department of English and Film Studies, University of Alberta. September 2003, September 2002.
| 2012 | Member NEH Evaluation Panel Digital Humanities Implementation Grants program. Washington, DC, USA |
| 2009 | Member, SSHRC Evaluation Panel Digging into Data Grant Competition London, England. |
| 2010-2013 | e-Lab Scholar Athabasca University |
| 2009-2012 | Principal Investigator Witches in Early Modern England Project |
| 2006-2007 | Research Assistant NORA Project |
| 2005-2007 | Co-investigator Stan Ruecker, Witchcraft Database University of Alberta |
| 2005-2006 | Research Assistant Stan Ruecker, Witchcraft Database University of Alberta |
| 2002 | Research Assistant Sylvia Brown, "Voices from the Borderlands: The Problem of ‘Home’ in Oral Histories of German Expellees in Canada.” University of Alberta |
| 2001 | Research Assistant Shyamal Bagchee, Canadian Regional Literature Cecily Devereux, Canadian Literature |
| 2000 | Research Assistant Janice Williamson, Library/Online Research Lahoucine Ouzgane, Proofreading/Editing University of Alberta |
| 2012-present | Contributor Connected Histories Project |
| 2011-present | Collaborator Datamining with Criminal Intent |
| 2011-present | Lead TAPoR Project (Text Analysis Portal for Research) |
| 2009-2010 | Collaborator Teaching for the 21st Century: A Pilot Project on e-Reading with SD62 |
| 2006-2010 | Use Case MONK Project (Metadata Offer New Knowledge) |
| 2006-2007 | Executive Chair, Executive Board Medieval and Early Modern Institute (MEMI) |
| 2006-2007 | Representative, Chair’s Advisory Council University of Alberta, Dept. of English and Film Studies |
| 2003-2005 | First-Year Committee Member University of Alberta, Dept. of English and Film Studies |
"On Our Obsession with Demon-Possession." Nerd Night Edmonton. Citadel Theatre. January 4, 2014.
Television Interview, Mother Shipton. Produced by Donna Davies, Ruby Tree Films Inc. Vision T.V. "iProphesy" Series. Original Air date November 21, 2012. http://www.visiontv.ca/videos/i-prophesy-mother-shiptons-visions/
Tracey Monger. "Norfolk Witchcraft – Executions – Ritual objects" January 3, 2012. http://tracymonger.wordpress.com/2013/01/02/norfolk-witchcraft-execution...
Rebecca Welzenbach. “Transcribed by hand, owned by libraries, made for everyone: EEBO-TCP in 2012.” EEBO-TCP White Paper. December 1, 2012.
"Witches in Early Modern England (A digital humanities project for unveiling witchcraft narratives)" Canadian Society for Renaissance Studies. Recommended Resource. June 7, 2012.
And for to See and Eek for to Eeie.“The Witches in Early Modern England project" May 31, 2012. Recommended Resource: http://chaucergirlinaber.tumblr.com/post/24131945133/the-witches-in-earl...
University of Alberta. Express News. May, 2012.
Geofffrey Rockwell. "Uszkalo Launches New Journal." May 10, 2012. http://digitalhumanities.org/centernet/
Rebecca Welzenbach. "Beyond the Facsimile: Early English Books Online (EEBO) and the Text Creation Partnership." Enriching Scholarship. May 7, 2011.
Matthew Reisz "Unicorns and sex? Out of this world" Times Higher Education. May 10, 2012. http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode...
Religion Culture University of Groningen Recommended Resource. http://www.facebook.com/ReligionCulture
Léo Charbonneau "New journal on the preternatural debuts: Will include articles on fairies, werewolves, magic spells and witches."
University Affairs. April 2, 2012. http://www.universityaffairs.ca/new-journal-on-the-preternatural-debuts....
Tim Bryson. "Witches, prosopography, and network analysis" Digital Librarian Inititative. March 25, 2012 http://digitallibrarians.org/node/5593
"Witches in Early Modern England Project" University of Michigan Libraries, March 13, 2012. Recommended Resource http://libguides.lib.msu.edu/content.php?pid=95483&sid=714110
Page View. "Looking for Unicorn Horns" The Chronicle of Higher Education. February 16, 2012. http://chronicle.com/blogs/pageview/looking-for-unicorn-horns/30019
Darin Haton. "Witchcraft and Digital Humanities" February 26th, 2012. http://dhayton.haverford.edu/2012/02/26/witchcraft-and-digital-humanities/
The Early Modern Intelligencer of the Birkbeck Early Modern Society. Recommended Resource. http://www.emintelligencer.org.uk.
Jessica Murphy. "Using Medieval and Early Modern Digital Archives” at Medieval and Renaissance Colloquium. Nov 11, 2011. http://jcmurphy.wordpress.com/2011/11/09/using-medieval-and-early-modern...
Rebecca Welzenbach. "On Witches." EEBO-TCP. October 28, 2011. http://www.textcreationpartnership.org/2011/10/28/a-true-discourse-on-we...
Thomas J. Wise. "The Civil War Journal of Nehemiah Wallington" April 09. 2011. http://www.metafilter.com/102370/The-Civil-War-Journal-of-Nehemiah-Walli...
Shakespeare and the Supernatural / Witchcraft. New York Library. Recommended Resource. http://nyu.libguides.com/content.php?pid=43608&sid=1483807
"Research Assignment – Primary Texts w/Presentation" EEBO-TCP. Recommended Resource. http://www.textcreationpartnership.org/syllabi-and-sample-assignments/
Digging into Data. Related Reading. Recommended Resource. http://www.diggingintodata.org/Home/AwardRecipients2009/tabid/175/Defaul..
Early Modern Web. "Welcome to Witches in Early Modern England. Recommended Resource. http://earlymodernweb.org/page/4?cat=226
Aaron McCollough "Bedfellows in Mass Digital Conversion: Ten Years of Text Creation Partnership(s)" New Knowledge Environments 1:1 (2009). http://journals.uvic.ca/index.php/INKE/article/view/160/166
"Real-life 'witches' shared modern women's search for meaning" The Edmonton Journal May 4, 2007 http://www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/cityplus_alberta/story.html?i...
| 2012 | Society for Neuroscience |
| 2010 | Shakespeare Society of America |
| 2008 | Canadian Society for Renaissance Studies |
| 2007 | Society for Digital Humanities |
| 2003 | Medieval and Early Modern Institute |
| 2003 | Society for the Study of Early Modern Women |
| 2002 | Milton Society |
| 2001 | Pacific Northwest Renaissance Society |
| 2000 | James Joyce Society |