Jessica DeSpain

I am an assistant professor of English at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. In 2009, my colleague Kristine Hildebrandt, a group of interested faculty, the College of Arts and Sciences, and I launched SIUE's IRIS Center. The IRIS Center is a space where faculty and students come together to collaborate on digital initiatives in the humanities and social sciences.

My own research focuses on nineteenth-century transatlantic reprinting and the history of the book. With three colleagues and an intrepid group of students I am developing The Wide, Wide World Digital Edition, a project that tracks the transatlantic reprint history of Susan Warner's 1851 sentimental novel The Wide, Wide World.