:Adrianne Wadewitz
{{Short description|American academic and Wikipedian (1977–2014)}}
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{{Use American English|date=August 2024}}
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{{Infobox person
| name = Adrianne Wadewitz
| image = Skepchickal (cropped).jpg
| alt = A face shot of Wadewitz looking upward
| caption = Wadewitz in 2012
| birth_name =
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1977|01|06}}
| birth_place = Omaha, Nebraska, U.S.
| death_date = {{Death date and age|2014|04|08|1977|01|06}}
| death_place = Palm Springs, California, U.S.
| occupation = Academic
| alma_mater = {{ubl
| Indiana University Bloomington (PhD)
}}
| known_for = Feminist scholar, educator, and Wikipedian
| other_names =
}}
Adrianne Wadewitz (January 6, 1977 – April 8, 2014) was an American feminist scholar of 18th-century British literature, Wikipedian, and commenter upon Wikipedia, particularly focusing on gender issues. In April 2014, Wadewitz died from head injuries from a fall while rock climbing.
Early life and education
The only child of Betty M., a nurse and attorney, and Nathan R. Wadewitz, a Lutheran pastor, Adrianne Wadewitz was born on January 6, 1977, in Omaha, Nebraska.{{cite news
| date = April 23, 2014
| url = http://www.latimes.com/obituaries/la-me-adrianne-wadewitz-20140424,0,1077455.story
| title = Adrianne Wadewitz dies at 37; helped diversify Wikipedia
| first = Elaine |last=Woo
| newspaper = Los Angeles Times
}} She graduated from North Platte High School in 1995.{{cite news
|url = http://www.omaha.com/article/20140423/NEWS/140429478/1707
|title = North Platte grad, 37, Wikipedia editor, dies in climbing fall
|work = Omaha World Herald
|date = April 23, 2014
|agency = World-Herald News Service
|access-date = April 27, 2014
|last = Wetzel
|first = Diane
|archive-date = April 24, 2014
|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20140424062441/http://www.latimes.com/obituaries/la-me-adrianne-wadewitz-20140424%2C0%2C1077455.story
|url-status = dead
}} Wadewitz studied English literature and received a degree in English from Columbia University in 1999.{{cite web
| url = https://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/20/business/media/adrianne-wadewitz-37-wikipedia-editor-and-academic-dies.html
| title = Adrianne Wadewitz, 37, Wikipedia Editor, Dies After Rock Climbing Fall
| last = Cohen
| first = Noam
| work = The New York Times
| date = April 19, 2014
| access-date = April 19, 2014
| archive-date = April 20, 2014
| url-status = live
| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20140420015133/http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/20/business/media/adrianne-wadewitz-37-wikipedia-editor-and-academic-dies.html
}} In 2011, she obtained a Ph.D. from Indiana University Bloomington and became a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Digital Learning and Research at Occidental College. She was chosen as a Mellon Digital Scholarship Postdoctoral Fellow and a HASTAC scholar.{{cite web
| last = Davidson
| first = Cathy
| url = https://www.hastac.org/blogs/cathy-davidson/2014/04/10/remembering-adrianne-wadewitz-scholar-communicator-teacher-leader
| publisher = HASTAC
| title = Remembering Adrianne Wadewitz: Scholar, Communicator, Teacher, Leader
| access-date = April 23, 2014
| archive-date = April 23, 2014
| url-status = live
| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20140423071538/https://www.hastac.org/blogs/cathy-davidson/2014/04/10/remembering-adrianne-wadewitz-scholar-communicator-teacher-leader
}}
Academic career
=Education=
Wadewitz graduated magna cum laude from Columbia University, and later received her master's and doctoral degrees in British literature with a minor in 18th-century studies from Indiana University Bloomington.{{cite web
| url = https://oxy.academia.edu/AdrianneWadewitz/CurriculumVitae
| title = Curriculum Vitae of Adrianne Wadewitz
| work = Academia.edu
| access-date = April 23, 2014
| url-status = live
| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20140524153644/http://oxy.academia.edu/AdrianneWadewitz/CurriculumVitae
| archive-date = May 24, 2014
}} She completed both a master's thesis, Doubting Thomas': The Failure of Religious Appropriation in The Age of Reason (2003),{{cite web
| last = Wadewitz
| first = Adrianne
| title = 'Doubting Thomas': The Failure of Religious Appropriation in The Age of Reason
| access-date = April 23, 2014
| url = http://iucat.iu.edu/catalog/6033513
| publisher = Indiana University
}} and her doctoral dissertation, 'Spare the Sympathy, Spoil the Child:' Sensibility, Selfhood, and the Maturing Reader, 1775–1815 (2011).{{cite thesis
| last = Wadewitz
| first = Adrianne
| year = 2011
| title = 'Spare the Sympathy, Spoil the Child:' Sensibility, Selfhood, and the Maturing Reader, 1775–1815
| place = Ann Arbor, Michigan
| id = {{ProQuest|884792113}}
}}. Order Number 3466388. Indiana University.
Her dissertation combined her research interests in archival work, children's literature, and gender studies. In it, Wadewitz studied the use of language and discursive strategies such as embedded narratives in children's books by Mary Wollstonecraft, Anna Laetitia Barbauld, Charlotte Smith, Maria Edgeworth, and others. She argued that through such reading, the child was supported in the construction of a "sympathetic self" that was "collective, benevolent, and imaginative."Wadewitz (2011), p. vi She also argued that the kinds of subjectivity displayed in late eighteenth-century children's literature challenged "the dominant Lockean model" by drawing upon "Rousseau's theory of education and the discourse of sensibility to construct a 'sympathetic self.' [...] Significantly, this 'sympathetic self' was available to both sexes and to children. Unlike other versions of the self based on sensibility, it was not predicated upon femininity. Moreover, maturation did not depend on age, but rather on one's state of mind; any person educated through this sympathetic literature could be an adult and participate in civic society through, for example, charitable acts." Moreover, through its analysis of "how childhood reading informed the reading of 'adult' novels by Jane Austen," it argued that "contemporary readers of Austen would have read her novels 'didactically' and followed the structural patterns of the children's literature they grew up reading rather than seeing the irony we value today."Wadewitz (2011), p. vii
=Digital humanities=
In 2009, Wadewitz began putting The New England Primer online, culminating in a permanent online exhibit in 2012, with text and annotated transcriptions.[https://archive.today/20140421171511/http://cdlrsandbox.org/neprimer/index.html New England Primer] exhibit and analysis, 2012. Retrieved April 21, 2014.
She published on topics including 18th-century children's literature, ambiguity in historical scholarship, and use of Wikipedia in the classroom.[http://works.bepress.com/adrianne_wadewitz/doctype.html Selected Works of Adrianne Wadewitz], [http://scholar.oxy.edu/ OxyScholar Digital Repository], Occidental College. Retrieved April 21, 2014.
Writing about the use of Wikipedia in education, she argued that in addition to traditional writing and research skills, students should develop skills in media and technological literacy. Reflecting on the construction of knowledge, she emphasized the need to assess sources; distinguish between fact-based and persuasive writing; and be aware of authority and legitimacy. She promoted the development of curricula that included collaborative writing, development of writing skills in the context of a "community of practice", and writing for a global readership.
Wikipedia editing and advocacy
File:The Impact of Wikipedia Adrianne Wadewitz.webm
Wadewitz made her first edit on Wikipedia in 2004,{{cite web
| url = http://seigradi.corriere.it/2014/04/21/addio-ad-adrianne-wadewitz-paladina-delle-donne-su-wikipedia/
| title = Addio ad Adrianne Wadewitz, paladina delle donne su Wikipedia
| author = Marta Serafini
| publisher = Corriere della Sera
| date = April 21, 2014
| access-date = April 27, 2014
| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20140427172643/http://seigradi.corriere.it/2014/04/21/addio-ad-adrianne-wadewitz-paladina-delle-donne-su-wikipedia/
| archive-date = April 27, 2014
}} and went on to create articles on female writers and scholars, several of them becoming featured articles. She originally edited anonymously for several years before revealing her gender.{{cite web
| work = PBS NewsHour
| date = May 18, 2014
| url = https://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/wikipedian-editor-took-wikipedias-gender-gap/
| title = 'Wikipedian' editor took on website's gender gap
| access-date = May 21, 2014
| last = Wholf
| first = Tracy
| archive-date = May 19, 2014
| url-status = live
| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20140519000243/http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/wikipedian-editor-took-wikipedias-gender-gap/
}} She made nearly 50,000 edits in all.
As a major promoter of getting more women to edit Wikipedia to help end systematic bias,{{cite news
| url = https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/12/25/magazine/2014-the-lives-they-lived.html
| title = The Lives They Lived – Remembering some of those we lost this year
| first = Virginia
| last = Heffernan
| author-link = Virginia Heffernan
| date = December 27, 2014
| work = The New York Times
| access-date = December 30, 2014
}} she said, "We need more female editors, more feminists (who can be editors of any gender), and more editors willing to work on content related to women. The single most underrepresented group on Wikipedia is married women of color with children."{{cite web
|work = USA Today
|date = March 26, 2014
|url = http://college.usatoday.com/2014/03/26/universities-re-write-wikipedia-to-fill-holes-include-women/
|title = Universities 're-write' Wikipedia to fill holes, include women
|access-date = April 20, 2014
|last = Mehrotra
|first = Karishma
|archive-date = April 21, 2014
|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20140421051432/http://college.usatoday.com/2014/03/26/universities-re-write-wikipedia-to-fill-holes-include-women/
|url-status = dead
}}
She increasingly became seen as an authority on Wikipedia, particularly on the encyclopedia's gender issues, and was cited as such by organizations such as the BBC.{{cite news
| date = April 7, 2014
| url = https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26828726
| title = How can Wikipedia woo women editors?
| first = Lynsea
| last = Garrison
| access-date = April 21, 2014
| work = BBC News Magazine
| publisher = BBC
| archive-date = May 23, 2014
| url-status = live
| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20140523235334/http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26828726
}}
Wadewitz also served on the board of the Wiki Education Foundation.
Climbing
Wadewitz enjoyed rock climbing, which she described in 2013 as enabling "a new narrative about herself beyond that of a bookish, piano-playing Wikipedia contributor":{{cite web
| url = https://www.hastac.org/blogs/wadewitz/2013/08/12/what-i-learned-worst-student-class
| last = Wadewitz
| first = Adrianne
| title = What I learned as the worst student in the class
| publisher = HASTAC
| date = August 12, 2013
| archive-date = April 25, 2014
| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20140425040459/https://www.hastac.org/blogs/wadewitz/2013/08/12/what-i-learned-worst-student-class
| url-status = dead
}}
{{quote|"For me, one of the most empowering outcomes of my year of climbing has been the new narrative I can tell about myself. I am no longer 'Adrianne: scholar, book lover, pianist, and Wikipedian'. I am now 'Adrianne: scholar, book lover, pianist, Wikipedian, and rock climber'. This was brought home most vividly to me one day when I was climbing outdoors here in Los Angeles and people on the beach were marveling at those of us climbing. Suddenly I realized, I used to be the person saying how crazy or impossible such feats were and now I was the one doing them. I had radically switched subject positions in a way I did not think possible for myself. That, I realized, is what I want my students to experience—that radical switch and growth. It is an enormous goal and I would love to hear how others work at achieving it with their students."}}
Death
File:Media tribute to Adrianne Wadewitz, Occidental College.jpg]]
On April 8, 2014, Wadewitz died from head injuries sustained a week earlier in a rock climbing fall at Joshua Tree National Park.{{cite news
| last = Albrinck
| first = Jennie
| title = Busy Weekend for Search and Rescue at Joshua Tree National Park
| url = http://www.nps.gov/jotr/parknews/busy-weekend-for-search-and-rescue-at-joshua-tree-national-park.htm
| access-date = April 24, 2014
| newspaper = Joshua Tree National Park
| date = April 1, 2014
| archive-date = April 24, 2014
| url-status = live
| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20140424080251/http://www.nps.gov/jotr/parknews/busy-weekend-for-search-and-rescue-at-joshua-tree-national-park.htm
| url = http://www.desertsun.com/story/news/local/2014/04/18/wikipedia-editor-dies-palm-springs-following-fall-joshua-tree-national-park/7890685/
| title = Wikipedia editor Adrianne Wadewitz dies in Palm Springs
| last1 = Newkirk
| first1 = Barrett
| date = April 18, 2014
| work = The Desert Sun
| access-date = April 18, 2014
| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20140419165219/http://www.desertsun.com/story/news/local/2014/04/18/wikipedia-editor-dies-palm-springs-following-fall-joshua-tree-national-park/7890685/
| archive-date = April 19, 2014
| url-status = live
}} Sue Gardner, then executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation, described Wadewitz's death as a "huge loss" and said she may have been Wikipedia's "single biggest contributor on ... female authors [and] women's history".
Obituaries for her were published in The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post,{{cite news
| url = https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/adrianne-wadewitz-wikipedia-contributor-dies-at-37/2014/04/25/42ceecd8-cc95-11e3-a75e-463587891b57_story.html
| title = Adrianne Wadewitz, Wikipedia contributor, dies at 37
| author = Elaine Woo
| newspaper = The Washington Post
| access-date = April 30, 2014
}} (republication of the Los Angeles Times article) The Sydney Morning Herald,{{cite news
| last = Cohen
| first = Noam
| date = April 25, 2014
| url = http://www.smh.com.au/comment/obituaries/adrianne-wadewitz-a-persnickety-factobsessed-wikipedia-editor-20140425-zqzdi.html
| title = Adrianne Wadewitz: A persnickety, fact-obsessed Wikipedia editor
| newspaper = The Sydney Morning Herald
| access-date = April 29, 2014
| location = Sydney
| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20140524165134/http://www.smh.com.au/comment/obituaries/adrianne-wadewitz-a-persnickety-factobsessed-wikipedia-editor-20140425-zqzdi.html
| archive-date = May 24, 2014
| url-status = live
}} (reprint of The New York Times obituary) and the Corriere della Sera, amongst others.E.g. "[http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/fortwayne/obituary.aspx?n=adrianne-wadewitz&pid=170755315 Dr. Adrianne Wadiwitz]" Fort Wayne, Indiana Newspapers, April 23, 2014.{{cite news
| work = The Boston Globe
| title = Adrianne Wadewitz: Seizing the power of Wikipedia
| date = May 3, 2014
| access-date = May 3, 2014
| author = Editorial
| author-link = Editorial
| url = https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/editorials/2014/05/03/adrianne-wadewitz-seizing-power-wikipedia/j5LtDtmbbr8LDSzuread2I/story.html
| archive-date = May 4, 2014
| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20140504122904/http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/editorials/2014/05/03/adrianne-wadewitz-seizing-power-wikipedia/j5LtDtmbbr8LDSzuread2I/story.html
| url-status = live
}} The Sydney Morning Herald also republished one of her last blog posts, in which she discussed how engaging with a difficult activity had taught her about helping students with their own difficulties, partly by teaching them to celebrate the little successes on the way to a goal. She wrote that, "Ultimately, nothing was more helpful for me than failing repeatedly" and that she wanted her students to realize that failures could be part of learning and were nothing to be ashamed of.{{cite news
| url = http://www.smh.com.au/world/how-adrianne-wadewitz-learnt-to-embrace-failure-20140425-zqzgx.html
| title = How Adrianne Wadewitz learnt to embrace failure
| last = Wadewitz
| first = Adrianne
| date = April 25, 2014
| work = The Sydney Morning Herald
| access-date = April 30, 2014
| location = Sydney
| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20140524164926/http://www.smh.com.au/world/how-adrianne-wadewitz-learnt-to-embrace-failure-20140425-zqzgx.html
| archive-date = May 24, 2014
| url-status = live
}} The journal [https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/abo/ ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640–1830], which Wadewitz had worked for from 2011 to 2012, dedicated its March 2014 issue to Wadewitz.{{cite journal
| journal = ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640–1830
| url = http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1087&context=abo
| date = May 12, 2014
| access-date = May 19, 2014
| title = Adrianne Wadewitz, 1977–2014
| first = Laura
| last = Runge
| volume = 4
| issue = 1
| publisher = ScholarCommons; University of South Florida
| quote = On behalf of all the editors, I dedicate this issue to her memory.
}}
Works
- {{cite book | last1 = Wadewitz | first1 = Adrianne | title = 'Doubting Thomas' : the failure of religious appropriation in the Age of Reason | year = 2003 | publisher = Indiana University | oclc = 56926441 | via =archive.is}} (M.A. dissertation with [https://archive.today/20200408083137/https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt/search?q1='Doubting%20Thomas'%20:%20the%20failure%20of%20religious%20appropriation%20in%20the%20Age%20of%20Reason;id=inu.30000094863283;view=1up;seq=7;start=1;sz=10;page=search;orient=0 Hathitrust copy])
- {{Cite journal | last1 = Wadewitz | first1 = Adrianne | last2 = Gay-White | first2 = Pamela | title = Introduction: "Performing the Didactic" | journal = The Lion and the Unicorn | volume = 33 | issue = 2 | pages = v–vii | publisher = Project MUSE | doi = 10.1353/uni.0.0457 | date = April 2009 | s2cid = 144967267}}
- {{cite thesis |type=Ph.D. | last = Wadewitz | first = Adrianne |date=2011 |title='Spare the Sympathy, Spoil the Child:' Sensibility, Selfhood, and the Maturing Reader, 1775–1815 |publisher= Indiana University |place= Ann Arbor, Michigan| id = {{ProQuest|884792113}} }} Order Number 3466388.
- {{cite book | last1 = Wadewitz | first1 = Adrianne | last2 = Geller | first2 = Anne Ellen | last3 = Beasley-Murray | first3 = Jon | contribution = {{Self-reference link|User:Wadewitz/TeachingEssay|Wiki-hacking: Opening up the Academy with Wikipedia}} | editor1-last = Scheinfeldt | editor1-first = Tom | editor2-last = Cohen | editor2-first = Daniel J. | title = Hacking the Academy: New Approaches to Scholarship and Teaching from Digital Humanities | place = Ann Arbor, Michigan | year = 2013 | url = http://hackingtheacademy.org/lectures-classrooms-and-the-curriculum/ | publisher = University of Michigan Press | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20140424062333/http://hackingtheacademy.org/lectures-classrooms-and-the-curriculum/ | archive-date = April 24, 2014 | url-status = dead | ref = none | access-date = April 24, 2014}}
- {{Cite journal | last1 = Wadewitz | first1 = Adrianne | last2 = Hilson | first2 = Mica | title = A Doctor for Who(m)?: Queer Temporalities and the Sexualized Child | journal = Bookbird: A Journal of International Children's Literature | volume = 52 | issue = 1 | pages = 63–76 | publisher = Project MUSE | date = January 2014 | doi = 10.1353/bkb.2014.0036 | s2cid = 143967856}}
See also
References
{{Reflist|30em}}
External links
{{Spoken Wikipedia|En-Adrianne Wadewitz-article.oga|date=February 25, 2015}}
{{Commons}}
{{Wikisource author}}
{{Wikiquote}}
{{Wikinews|Wikimedian activist Adrianne Wadewitz dies}}
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20140419133736/https://www.hastac.org/blogs/wadewitz Wadewitz's blog] on the Humanities, Arts, Science and Technology Alliance and Collaboratory website
- Alex Juhasz and Anne Balsamo, [https://web.archive.org/web/20140420213321/http://femtechnet.newschool.edu/blog/adrianne-wadewitz/ Tribute to Adrianne Wadewitz], The New School, FemTechNet blog, April 10, 2014.
- "[http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/fortwayne/obituary.aspx?n=adrianne-wadewitz&pid=170755315 Dr. Adrianne Wadewitz]" Fort Wayne, Indiana Newspapers, April 23, 2014.
- [https://sites.google.com/site/wadewitz/ Wadewitz] Google Website.
- {{Wikipedia person user link|Wadewitz|Adrianne Wadewitz}}
- {{cite news
| url = https://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/wikipedian-editor-took-wikipedias-gender-gap/
| title = 'Wikipedian' editor took on website's gender gap
| date = May 18, 2014
| work = PBS NewsHour
| publisher = PBS
| access-date = May 19, 2014
| first = Tracy
| last = Wholf
| archive-date = May 19, 2014
| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20140519000243/http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/wikipedian-editor-took-wikipedias-gender-gap/
| url-status = live
}}
- {{cite news
| url = http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2014-04-09/Special_report
| title = Community mourns passing of Adrianne Wadewitz
| date = April 9, 2014
| work = The Signpost
| access-date = January 6, 2014
}}
- {{cite web |last1=Wadewitz |first1=Adrianne |title=Wikipedia's "Neutral Point of View" |url=https://vimeo.com/102555721 |website=FemTechNet |location=Pitzer College |date=March 2013}}
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