Thomas Leitch

Last updated

Thomas M. Leitch (born June 23, 1951) is an American academic and film scholar, the author of several authoritative books on film studies and one on Wikipedia.

Contents

Early life

Leitch was born in Orange, New Jersey,[ citation needed ] and educated at Columbia University, where in 1972 he graduated BA magna cum laude in English and Comparative Literature, and then at Yale University, where he became an MA in 1973 and a PhD in 1976. [1]

Academic career

Leitch's first academic post was as assistant professor in the department of English at Yale, from 1976 to 1983. He then had the same position at the department of English, University of Delaware, from 1983 to 1986, when he became an associate professor there. He advanced to professor of English at the University of Delaware in 1991, and remains in post. [1] He has also taught as a Fulbright Lecturer at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. [2]

His fields of study are American and British literature, cultural studies, film and new media, and public humanities. He “drifted into film studies” in the 1980s and since then has taught undergraduate courses in film and graduate courses in cultural and literary theory. [2]

Reception

Times Higher Education reviewed Leitch's Wikipedia U: Knowledge, Authority and Liberal Education in the Digital Age (2014), noting his view that the assumptions made by Wikipedia's critics about accuracy and authority are themselves open to debate. In the book, Leitch argues that Wikipedia is “an ideal instrument for probing the central assumptions behind liberal education”. [3]

Personal life

Leitch married in 1977 and has two children.[ citation needed ] He is a Roman Catholic and a Democrat.[ citation needed ]

Selected publications

Notes

  1. 1 2 Thomas Leitch cv at udel.edu (University of Delaware), accessed 28 March 2020
  2. 1 2 THOMAS LEITCH Biography at udel.edu, accessed 28 March 2020
  3. “Wikipedia U: Knowledge, Authority and Liberal Education in the Digital Age, by Thomas Leitch” in Times Higher Education online, accessed 28 March 2020 (subscription required)

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Encyclopedia</span> Type of reference work

An encyclopedia or encyclopaedia is a reference work or compendium providing summaries of knowledge, either general or special, to a particular field or discipline. Encyclopedias are divided into articles or entries that are arranged alphabetically by article name or by thematic categories, or else are hyperlinked and searchable. Encyclopedia entries are longer and more detailed than those in most dictionaries. Generally speaking, encyclopedia articles focus on factual information concerning the subject named in the article's title; this is unlike dictionary entries, which focus on linguistic information about words, such as their etymology, meaning, pronunciation, use, and grammatical forms.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Liberal arts education</span> Traditional academic course in Western higher education

Liberal arts education is the traditional academic course in Western higher education. Liberal arts takes the term art in the sense of a learned skill rather than specifically the fine arts. Liberal arts education can refer to studies in a liberal arts degree course or to a university education more generally. Such a course of study contrasts with those that are principally vocational, professional, or technical, as well as religiously based courses.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Humanities</span> Academic disciplines that study society and culture

Humanities are academic disciplines that study aspects of human society and culture, including certain fundamental questions asked by humans. During the Renaissance, the term 'humanities' referred to the study of classical literature and language, as opposed to the study of religion or 'divinity.' The study of the humanities was a key part of the secular curriculum in universities at the time. Today, the humanities are more frequently defined as any fields of study outside of natural sciences, social sciences, formal sciences, and applied sciences. They use methods that are primarily critical, speculative, or interpretative and have a significant historical element—as distinguished from the mainly empirical approaches of science.

Stanley Eugene Fish is an American literary theorist, legal scholar, author and public intellectual. He is currently the Floersheimer Distinguished Visiting Professor of Law at Yeshiva University's Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York City. Fish has previously served as the Davidson-Kahn Distinguished University Professor of Humanities and a professor of law at Florida International University and is dean emeritus of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Matthew Arnold</span> English poet and cultural critic (1822–1888)

Matthew Arnold was an English poet and cultural critic. He was the son of Thomas Arnold, the headmaster of Rugby School, and brother to both Tom Arnold, literary professor, and William Delafield Arnold, novelist and colonial administrator. He has been characterised as a sage writer, a type of writer who chastises and instructs the reader on contemporary social issues. He was also an inspector of schools for thirty-five years, and supported the concept of state-regulated secondary education.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Intellectual</span> Person who engages in critical thinking and reasoning

An intellectual is a person who engages in critical thinking, research, and reflection about the reality of society, and who proposes solutions for its normative problems. Coming from the world of culture, either as a creator or as a mediator, the intellectual participates in politics, either to defend a concrete proposition or to denounce an injustice, usually by either rejecting, producing or extending an ideology, and by defending a system of values.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lionel Trilling</span> American literary critic (1905–1975)

Lionel Mordecai Trilling was an American literary critic, short story writer, essayist, and teacher. He was one of the leading U.S. critics of the 20th century who analyzed the contemporary cultural, social, and political implications of literature. With his wife Diana Trilling, whom he married in 1929, he was a member of the New York Intellectuals and contributor to the Partisan Review.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cleanth Brooks</span> American literary critic and professor

Cleanth Brooks was an American literary critic and professor. He is best known for his contributions to New Criticism in the mid-20th century and for revolutionizing the teaching of poetry in American higher education. His best-known works, The Well Wrought Urn: Studies in the Structure of Poetry (1947) and Modern Poetry and the Tradition (1939), argue for the centrality of ambiguity and paradox as a way of understanding poetry. With his writing, Brooks helped to formulate formalist criticism, emphasizing "the interior life of a poem" and codifying the principles of close reading.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Monier Monier-Williams</span> British professor of Sanskrit (1819–1899)

Sir Monier Monier-Williams was a British scholar who was the second Boden Professor of Sanskrit at Oxford University, England. He studied, documented and taught Asian languages, especially Sanskrit, Persian and Hindustani.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">H. A. R. Gibb</span> Scottish orientalist (1895–1971)

Sir Hamilton Alexander Rosskeen Gibb, known as H. A. R. Gibb, was a Scottish historian and Orientalist.

George Paul Landow was Professor of English and Art History Emeritus at Brown University. He was a leading authority on Victorian literature, art, and culture, as well as a pioneer in criticism and theory of Electronic literature, hypertext and hypermedia. He also pioneered the use of hypertext and the web in higher education.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Outline of library and information science</span> Overview of and topical guide to library science

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to library and information science:

Adam Zachary Newton is an American academic. He has served as university professor, Stanton Chair in Literature and Humanities, and chair of the Department of English at Yeshiva University. His previous appointment was as Jane and Rowland Blumberg Centennial Professor at the University of Texas at Austin, where he taught in the English Department, the Committee on Comparative Literature, the Department of Middle Eastern Studies, and the Program in Jewish Studies. More recently, he has held appointments as distinguished visiting professor at Emory University and Agnes Scott College in Atlanta, Georgia.

<i>The Truth According to Wikipedia</i> 2008 Dutch film

The Truth According to Wikipedia, also referred to as Wiki's Truth, is a Dutch documentary about Wikipedia directed by IJsbrand van Veelen. It was screened at The Next Web conference in Amsterdam on 4 April 2008 and broadcast by the Dutch documentary series Backlight on Nederland 2 on 7 April 2008. It was subsequently made available through American Public Television.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">King's College London Faculty of Arts and Humanities</span>

The King's College London Faculty of Arts & Humanities is one of the nine academic Faculties of Study of King's College London. It is situated on the Strand in the heart of central London, in the vicinity of many renowned cultural institutions with which the Faculty has close links including the British Museum, Shakespeare's Globe, the National Portrait Gallery and the British Library. In the 2024 Times Higher Education World University Rankings by subject, King's Arts & Humanities ranked in the top twenty worldwide.

Giorgio Melchiori CBE FBA was an Italian literary critic and translator. His scholarly work was focused on the Early Modern English literature of the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras.

This is a list of books about Wikipedia or for which Wikipedia is a major subject.

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to the humanities:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wikidata</span> Free knowledge database project

Wikidata is a collaboratively edited multilingual knowledge graph hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation. It is a common source of open data that Wikimedia projects such as Wikipedia, and anyone else, is able to use under the CC0 public domain license. Wikidata is a wiki powered by the software MediaWiki, including its extension for semi-structured data, the Wikibase. As of early 2023, Wikidata had 1.54 billion item statements.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dariusz Jemielniak</span> Polish management academic (born 1975)

Dariusz Jemielniak is a professor of management at Kozminski University, faculty associate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, and vice-president of Polish Academy of Sciences.