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literaturegeek.bsky.social
Amanda Wyatt! Visconti
@literaturegeek.bsky.social
9K followers 5K following 1.4K posts
@ScholarsLab Director ✨💻📚🏳️‍🌈 (personal acct 🙃)
Just+joyful, critical+creative tech & culture

*DIY scholcom: letterpress+zine+blog+code
*Book-adjacent data+making
*Experimental/DH+library futures+community

3 !s in a hoodie
Dr! 🏳️‍⚧️ They/Them
AmandaVisconti.com
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literaturegeek.bsky.social
Amanda Wyatt! Visconti @literaturegeek.bsky.social · Nov 9
Hi new folks! I post on: intersections of tech/culture/justice, making+craft (zines, weird resin, letterpress/book arts, color+light, retro tech), directing a digital humanities research center, transformative justice, bookadjacent code/data. General enthusiast; laugh inappropriately loudly at puns.
Photo of a full-size-skull (front half) made of translucent resin, with embedded ramen noodle block in the brain area, and chatter teeth in the teeth area, held up to the sun so the light shines through the translucent resin from the back. Photo of materials for the Ghost Books project artfully arranged on a floor, including a swirl of blue LEDs with silicone diffusion making them look like neon lights, superglue, acrylic and glass cut to size to be assembled into a rectangular-prism/book shape with smoothe or crenellated edges, and one of the books I'm basing the initial prototype on (10 PRINT) because of it's interesting blue and white patterned cover. A photo of a white lab-hound mix dog lying down but with head up, basking in the bright sun with eyes squeezed shut in pleasure. There is a red brick wall behind the dog. Example themed reading card deck, prepared for the ACH 2023 conference's #DHmakes (digital humanities making) session. An open plastic playing card case holds a playing-card-style card with information about the "#DHMakes at #ACH2023" project governing the readings chosen for inclusion in the deck; next to the case is a fanned-out pile of playing-card-style cards showing tech, GLAM, and social justice zine titles such as "Kult of the Cyber Witch #1" and "Handbook for the Activist Archivist"; on the top of the fanned pile you can see a whole card. The whole card is white with black text; the title "Design Justice for Action" is in large print at the top of the card, followed by a list of the zine's creators (Design Justice Network, Sasha Costanza-Chock, Una Lee, Victoria Barnett, Taylor Stewart), the hashtags "#DHMakes #ACH2023, and a black square QR code (which links to an online version of that zine).
literaturegeek.bsky.social
Trying to pick a press name, since I've had enough asks I'm setting up a little web store to let folks buy some of my prints. Enthusiast Press (for that three !!!s in a hoodie life), Proof Press (for the bread+printing puns) = already taken and/or too much search result interference.

Ideas?
November 24, 2025 at 10:32 AM
Reposted by Amanda Wyatt! Visconti
plach.bsky.social
What an honor to share my 1st #DHmakes project w @scholarslab.bsky.social! This is a career high for me. It’s been so enriching exploring the world of data physicalization + critical making. I’ve discovered a crafty side I didn’t know I had AND it’s been transforming how I teach #DigitalHumanities 😍
literaturegeek.bsky.social Amanda Wyatt! Visconti @literaturegeek.bsky.social · 1d
Thanks @plach.bsky.social! for letting @scholarslab.bsky.social display a poster of her 1st yearlong data physicalization: embroidery+beading representing her insomnia, wakefulness, sleep over the course of 2024 (check her #DHmakes posts for 2025's version, w/iterated method+data granularity)
Photo of a wall exhibit label and poster showing a photograph of Pam Lach's 2024 "Sleep/Insomnia Data Physicalization", a tight circular spiral of embroidered Z's in white and various blue threads, with orange and clear beads, on a black-blue galaxy-ish fabric background. The poster text says "Sleep/Insomnia Data Physicalization / By Pamella Lach (2024) / A yearlong, embroidered visualization of personal data: nightly sleep amounts (thread color) & types of wakefulness/insomnia (bead color)." Exhibit label text in next photo's alt text. Photo of an exhibit label that says: "#DHmakes Sleep/Insomnia Data Physicalization Pamella Lach 2024 Materials: thread, fabric, beads Methods: embroidery, physical data visualization The photographed embroidery on this poster is a data "physicalization": data visualized via physical means, such as this project's hand-embroidered fabric. Data artist & digital humanities scholar Pamella Lach added stitches throughout 2024, tracking the entire year's data on her sleep & insomnia. Thread color represents quantities of sleep; bead color represents type of wakefulness and insomnia. A 2025 version builds on this method with added complexity & granularity of how data was captured & how those details are represented visually. "#DHmakes" is both a hashtag & a community of scholarly practice. On social media, folks in digital humanities, libraries, academia, and other learning-work who craft or make use the tag to share everything from failed first attempts at new hobby methods, to advanced professional work. Beyond social media, #DHmakes is a community that's published peer-reviewed journal articles, run scholarly conference panels & workshops, hosted a public methodological talk series, built a group project representing many kinds of data art & craft, & more. Read more about #DHmakes & how to get involved via the QR code. Scholars' Lab's Makerspace can help you explore making, crafts, & building-both as means of teaching & research, and for pleasure, advocacy, & art."
November 23, 2025 at 3:38 PM
literaturegeek.bsky.social
Thanks @plach.bsky.social! for letting @scholarslab.bsky.social display a poster of her 1st yearlong data physicalization: embroidery+beading representing her insomnia, wakefulness, sleep over the course of 2024 (check her #DHmakes posts for 2025's version, w/iterated method+data granularity)
Photo of a wall exhibit label and poster showing a photograph of Pam Lach's 2024 "Sleep/Insomnia Data Physicalization", a tight circular spiral of embroidered Z's in white and various blue threads, with orange and clear beads, on a black-blue galaxy-ish fabric background. The poster text says "Sleep/Insomnia Data Physicalization / By Pamella Lach (2024) / A yearlong, embroidered visualization of personal data: nightly sleep amounts (thread color) & types of wakefulness/insomnia (bead color)." Exhibit label text in next photo's alt text. Photo of an exhibit label that says: "#DHmakes Sleep/Insomnia Data Physicalization Pamella Lach 2024 Materials: thread, fabric, beads Methods: embroidery, physical data visualization The photographed embroidery on this poster is a data "physicalization": data visualized via physical means, such as this project's hand-embroidered fabric. Data artist & digital humanities scholar Pamella Lach added stitches throughout 2024, tracking the entire year's data on her sleep & insomnia. Thread color represents quantities of sleep; bead color represents type of wakefulness and insomnia. A 2025 version builds on this method with added complexity & granularity of how data was captured & how those details are represented visually. "#DHmakes" is both a hashtag & a community of scholarly practice. On social media, folks in digital humanities, libraries, academia, and other learning-work who craft or make use the tag to share everything from failed first attempts at new hobby methods, to advanced professional work. Beyond social media, #DHmakes is a community that's published peer-reviewed journal articles, run scholarly conference panels & workshops, hosted a public methodological talk series, built a group project representing many kinds of data art & craft, & more. Read more about #DHmakes & how to get involved via the QR code. Scholars' Lab's Makerspace can help you explore making, crafts, & building-both as means of teaching & research, and for pleasure, advocacy, & art."
November 23, 2025 at 3:10 PM
Reposted by Amanda Wyatt! Visconti
librarycolleen.bsky.social
Court permanently blocks Trump's executive order to dismantle federal agency for America's libraries IMLS
librarytechnology.org/pr/31973
Court permanently blocks Trump's executive order to dismantle federal agency for America's libraries
Press Release: Court permanently blocks Trump's executive order to dismantle federal agency for America's libraries. The U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island struck down the Trump Adm...
librarytechnology.org
November 22, 2025 at 3:00 PM
Reposted by Amanda Wyatt! Visconti
histoftech.bsky.social
THIS
mcnees.bsky.social Robert “The Baste God” McNees @mcnees.bsky.social · 2d
Journalist challenge: Use “Machine Learning” when you mean machine learning and “LLM” when you mean LLM. Ditch “AI” as a catch-all term, it’s not useful for readers and it helps companies trying to confuse the public by obscuring the roles played by different technologies. 🧪
November 23, 2025 at 1:35 AM
Reposted by Amanda Wyatt! Visconti
afamiglietti.bsky.social
I would be more convinced by the argument "we won't allow agentic AI to have any real authority because we know we can't hold it accountable" if we were currently holding any of the powerful people/institutions with authority accountable
November 22, 2025 at 12:38 PM
literaturegeek.bsky.social
Seth Rockman: 'Experiential research as a method for IDing questions you didn’t know to ask, rather than providing answers you wouldn’t have had...an experiential research method lets us envision more things we want to know about the past' (experiential=do something the way it was done in the past)
Screenshot of text from an interview answer by Seth Rockman: " SR: There are so many problems with transcending our subjectivities; so many difficulties when encountering the violence that structured a past that can't and shouldn't be reproduced or approximated. And that creates a real barrier. But at the same time, as historians, we are committed to inhabiting other bodies and living in other times and making sense of universes that don't make sense in our own. Our craft requires imagining ourselves across differences of cosmology and spirituality, of material conditions, of the day-to-day experiences of survival. But this gets ever more difficult when our subjects lived on the margins of the societies whose structures of exploitation and exclusion endure to the present day. That's why I've been thinking about experiential research as a method for identifying questions that you didn't know to ask, rather than providing answers that you wouldn't have had otherwise. For example, I've been doing some dyeing projects with my undergraduates in a class called "A Textile History of Atlantic Slavery," and what we stress in that class is, No, you are not pretending to be a West African woman in 1774. No, you're not pretending to be an enslaved woman on a South Carolina plantation in 1854. You are yourself, you are now, and you're up to your elbows in a pot of really cold water. When students are toting buckets of water to rinse their fabrics, they realize that water is very heavy. And the questions then follow: How did people in the past move water? How did their backs and bodies experience this work? Who was doing this kind of work? We are then prompted to ask questions about infrastructure, about bodily experience, about the gendered division of labor. Once we're asking these kinds of questions, then we can go searching for the answers. An archival record might not prompt us to pose these questions. An experiential research method allows us to envision more things that we…
November 22, 2025 at 1:32 PM
Reposted by Amanda Wyatt! Visconti
ryancordell.org
Fundamentally they didn’t understand why this hands-on, historical technology was important in this moment—to be really honest, I think upper admin wished I’d stop dabbling with printing presses &c. & apply for more grants for my DH projects—my "real work"—they didn’t see how the 2 are linked+
November 21, 2025 at 7:58 PM
Reposted by Amanda Wyatt! Visconti
ryancordell.org
One reason I left my previous job was that even as Huskiana grew & we had growing evidence of its impact among students & faculty, college leadership refused to put real resources behind it—they’d send tours through & write news stories—but when I asked for resources treated it like my silly hobby+
November 21, 2025 at 7:58 PM
Reposted by Amanda Wyatt! Visconti
quinnanya.me
I love this interview and the parallels between what he discovered as a historian making a thing and realizing all the little decisions a weaver makes in the process, and all the many things DH staff know about doing projects that just don't get written into the record of scholarship. #DHmakes
November 22, 2025 at 3:58 AM
Reposted by Amanda Wyatt! Visconti
walshbr.bsky.social
A new post by Praxis Fellow Ganiyu Jimoh on mediation and memory and African art. scholarslab.lib.virginia.edu/blog/digital...
Digital Artefacts Series: Concept & Format
From Shrine to Screen: Reimagining Ìbejì Through Analog and Digital Lenses
scholarslab.lib.virginia.edu
November 19, 2025 at 7:24 PM
Reposted by Amanda Wyatt! Visconti
miriamposner.com
This is the incredibly disturbing letter the U.S. House Committee on Education & Workforce sent to UC Berkeley in September, in which the committee demands outrageous and detailed information about staff & students. A colleague obtained it via a Public Records Act request. pdfhost.io/v/4VaaH4PvJP...
All documents and communications from May 14, 2024, to present, referring or relating to then-Chancellor Christ’s May 14 promise to review exchange and internship programs, including its implementation and the involvement of the UC Berkeley Divest Coalition. All constitutions and bylaws for every student organization at UC Berkeley School of Law for the years 2022 through 2025 that reference Zionism, Zionists, BDS, Israel, or Palestine. All documents and communications referring or relating to the creation of the Palestinian and Arab Studies Program, including whether the program was created in response to encampment demands; how UC Berkeley determined the amount of funding it would provide; UC Berkeley’s fundraising efforts; and the consideration, selection, and hiring of its leadership. All documents and communications referring or relating to programming by the Palestinian and Arab Studies Program, including the November 2024 inaugural conference.24 All documents and communications referring or relating to the disinvitation of Israeli professor Yael Nativ from teaching at UC Berkeley that were sent, received, or are in the possession of one or more of the following entities: Office of the Chancellor; the Department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies; the Center for Student Conduct; and the Office for the Prevention of Harassment and Discrimination. All syllabi and other course materials referring or relating to Israel, Zionism, or Palestine since August 2023, including the 2025 course “English Composition in Connection with the Reading of World Literature – Leninism and Anarchism” and the 2024 course “Palestine: A Settler Colonial Analysis. ” All documents and communications referring or relating to the “Feminist and Queer Solidarities with Palestine” event at UC Berkeley, including any
November 21, 2025 at 6:24 PM
Reposted by Amanda Wyatt! Visconti
roopikarisam.bsky.social
This essay talks about a major turning point in my approach to digital humanities, which has directly shaped what I've been doing for the last 5 years. I can show it to you soon once we finish dealing with some UI issues and do a little bit more data cleaning. But really, it freed me.
November 21, 2025 at 8:30 PM
literaturegeek.bsky.social
Very Extra broadsides are my favorite letterpress genre to make. You can tell this one isn't done yet from there still being significant white space. (Uses my recent acrylic PC & wood skeleton lasercut blocks, which both came out well, as well as my wood Luddite lasercut block) #DHmakes
Photo of a letterpress print on white paper with green and black ink. It says "VAPORWARE pointing out the (tech) emperor has no clothes >:c since (well before) 1811 / Luddites didn't "fear technology", they broke the machines that allowed the rich to enshittify livelihoods/ who's your tech for? / caution: no tech's adoption is inevitable (lol blockchain) / glitch their cistems" and is decorated with a historical Luddite, dancing skeleton kicking a computer, and diverting trying to sell you things from inside his trenchcoat (the things are three $ symbols and a poison symbol)
November 21, 2025 at 7:43 PM
Reposted by Amanda Wyatt! Visconti
scholarslab.bsky.social
Neat two-tone cityscape prints made by a student in our makerspace, extruded from mapping data:
Photo of a 3D print of a cityscape with skyscraper along two sides of a river; the city is white, and the river is blue filament. It's an actual city, with the forms extruded from mapping data. There are even little boats on the river! Photo of a 3D print of a cityscape with skyscraper along two sides of a river; the city is white, and the river is blue filament. It's an actual city, with the forms extruded from mapping data. In the background is another print of another area of a city. Photo of a 3D print of a cityscape with skyscraper along two sides of a river; the city is white, and the river is blue filament. It's an actual city, with the forms extruded from mapping data. There are even little bridges crossing the river at multiple spots.
November 21, 2025 at 11:15 AM
literaturegeek.bsky.social
Lasercut the Cooper Black Yarn font in the correct direction, 2 sizes @'s and #'s since none of those in our printshop, & glued everything up to very-near-typehigh. Going to test printing today. #DHmakes
Photo of orange acrylic lasercut sheets being glued and clamped to frosted acrylic mounts of the same size, to raise them to printing type high. One is a 5.5" wide pointing hand, and the other says "technology" (reflected backwards) in a bubbly font Photo of orange acrylic lasercut sheets being glued to frosted acrylic mounts of the same size, to raise them to printing type high. All are reflected backwards so they print the right direction. Shown are a solid 120pt Cooper Black capital A, an R and Y in similar but diagonally striped font, and a retro Mac icon image. Photo of orange acrylic lasercut sheets stacked on frosted acrylic mounts of the same size, to be glued together to raise them to printing type high. All are reflected backwards so they print the right direction. There's a mix of large Cooper Black letters and images such as a large pointing hand. Each suit on its own piece of blue paper to help keep the mounts of the same size together. Photo of orange acrylic lasercut sheets being glued to frosted acrylic mounts of the same size, to raise them to printing type high. All are reflected backwards so they print the right direction. Shown are a hashtag and an @ sign.
November 21, 2025 at 10:17 AM
literaturegeek.bsky.social
Today is the annual Trans Day of Remembrance, keeping alive the memory of folks hate killed. @thetransfemininereview.com's guide to preserve our work+history has ways all can fight literal erasure (esp. this section on practical steps you can take, eg request yr library buy books by trans authors)
The Trans Literature Preservation Project: A Practical Guide to Resisting Censorship
Project 2025 wants to criminalize trans literature. Here’s a game plan for keeping our stories alive.
thetransfemininereview.com
November 20, 2025 at 9:38 PM
Reposted by Amanda Wyatt! Visconti
zohrankmamdani.bsky.social
On this Trans Day of Remembrance, we remember the bright and courageous trans people whose lives were stolen by hatred. Their absence is felt across our city.

We will honor them by building a New York where every trans person can live safely, fully and freely.
November 20, 2025 at 4:57 PM
literaturegeek.bsky.social
Personal goal of lasercutting increasingly large printers fists printing block, & increasing the count of the highest number of puns I've fit into a letterpress broadside
Photo of a lasercut neon orange piece of 5.5" x 2.5" acrylic, which has been lasercut to have a historical printers fist image (pointing hand) raised off it for printing. It is next to my hand for scale. In the background is a lasercutter slicing rectangles into clear acrylic.
November 20, 2025 at 3:00 PM
literaturegeek.bsky.social
Part of this=how Ammon, @lmmiller.bsky.social @shane.logoff.website @jeremyboggs.net + made our makerspace expansive—not stopping at just engineering-style making: textiles, costuming, cosplay, book+paper arts, retro tech, jewelry, ceramics+more, listening for more make/art/craft we can support
literaturegeek.bsky.social Amanda Wyatt! Visconti @literaturegeek.bsky.social · 4d
The @scholarslab.bsky.social makerspace is such a lovely affirming, inspiring space to spend time. Proud of what leader Ammon achieved in our new space, its constant gentle friendly hum of people crafting+teaching each other. Seen multiple classes not just awake but excited at 8am(?!) to be using it
Makerspace
A welcoming space for creative crafting, tinkering, and experimentation with technologies like 3D printing, fabric arts, electronics, and physical computing. Open to everyone.
scholarslab.org
November 20, 2025 at 10:42 AM
literaturegeek.bsky.social
Makerspace @scholarslab.bsky.social is free & open to all=you don't need any connection to UVA to use our makerspace & workshops. We enjoy consulting w/folks from our local community on their making projects or method-learning goals, & teaching workshops for local groups (including local students).
literaturegeek.bsky.social Amanda Wyatt! Visconti @literaturegeek.bsky.social · 4d
The @scholarslab.bsky.social makerspace is such a lovely affirming, inspiring space to spend time. Proud of what leader Ammon achieved in our new space, its constant gentle friendly hum of people crafting+teaching each other. Seen multiple classes not just awake but excited at 8am(?!) to be using it
Makerspace
A welcoming space for creative crafting, tinkering, and experimentation with technologies like 3D printing, fabric arts, electronics, and physical computing. Open to everyone.
scholarslab.org
November 20, 2025 at 10:36 AM
literaturegeek.bsky.social
UVA teachers, we 💜 class makerspace visits & to design+teach workshops exploring what you're teaching, across all UVA schools (Ammon has graduate training in history & in education!). Especially noting our unusual expertise in humanities-supporting critical making. And that we're open to all & free✨
literaturegeek.bsky.social Amanda Wyatt! Visconti @literaturegeek.bsky.social · 4d
The @scholarslab.bsky.social makerspace is such a lovely affirming, inspiring space to spend time. Proud of what leader Ammon achieved in our new space, its constant gentle friendly hum of people crafting+teaching each other. Seen multiple classes not just awake but excited at 8am(?!) to be using it
Makerspace
A welcoming space for creative crafting, tinkering, and experimentation with technologies like 3D printing, fabric arts, electronics, and physical computing. Open to everyone.
scholarslab.org
November 20, 2025 at 10:31 AM
literaturegeek.bsky.social
The @scholarslab.bsky.social makerspace is such a lovely affirming, inspiring space to spend time. Proud of what leader Ammon achieved in our new space, its constant gentle friendly hum of people crafting+teaching each other. Seen multiple classes not just awake but excited at 8am(?!) to be using it
Makerspace
A welcoming space for creative crafting, tinkering, and experimentation with technologies like 3D printing, fabric arts, electronics, and physical computing. Open to everyone.
scholarslab.org
November 20, 2025 at 10:23 AM
Reposted by Amanda Wyatt! Visconti
waldo.net
The Cavalier Daily, UVA's student newspaper, hasn't had a single FOIA request fulfilled since *July 1*. This is flatly illegal. Senator Deeds shared UVA's FOIA response with the newspaper, which allowed them to do this reporting.
November 20, 2025 at 12:52 AM
Reposted by Amanda Wyatt! Visconti
waldo.net
My state senator, @creighdeeds.bsky.social, could not get answers from the University of Virginia (which he represents) about the ousting of President Jim Ryan, so he FOIAed them, for which they charged him $4,500 and took one month and four days to respond (five days are allowed by law).
State Sen. Creigh Deeds received his FOIA requests from U.Va. — here’s what we learned
After submitting a six-section Freedom of Information Act Request to the University Sept. 18, State Sen. Creigh Deeds, D-Charlottesville, received 284 pages of records Oct. 29, pertaining to former Un...
www.cavalierdaily.com
November 20, 2025 at 12:44 AM