Brown argus butterfly: First Dissertation Committee Invitation for me with a Doctoral Student in Cambridge, Massachusetts :),

I'd be happy to, but please note that I haven't been in such a role before, and would very much be the junior member on your committee, and seek to learn from Drs. Jan Wall and Susan Patterson. That said, what is/are the (very) tentative title(s) of your dissertation? And what is/are its/their main argument (if you're at a place that you can begin to formulate this)? 

I think I can contribute in a few ways to your project. I'm a (Manuel) Castellian (who wrote "The Rise of the Network Society" trilogy among many other books including "The Internet Galaxy") in many ways, and have taught a course on the "Network Society, Information Technology (and Global University)"- http://worlduniversityandschool.org/InfoTechNetworkSocGlobalUniv.html -  including about the internet's history, about hacking and also touching on Turkle's work among other aspects you examine in your paper. I'm also an ethnographer, anthropologist, sociologist and social scientist, with a focus on the information age and virtual worlds and am about to publish a book, an actual-virtual ethnography of Harbin Hot Springs - http://www.scottmacleod.com/ActualVirtualHarbinBook.html - in northern California, which looks at some of the generative aspects of the internet including how making an ethnographic field site for actual-virtual comparison might help researchers and re what I'm calling ethno-wiki-virtual-world-graphy. My book has a chapter in it focusing explicitly much on "griefing" in SL which very much could be considered a kind of harassment. (As an anthropologist, I could also seek to bring in a cross-cultural and inter-lingual comparative perspective re harassment in our doctoral dissertation conversation, but this might be too much possibly).

I'm also interested in how Internet harassers, if egregious enough (e.g. threatening potential or carrying out real life violence), even could be helped re online psychotherapy, and re World University and School - http://worlduniversityandschool.org - so re psychology and psychiatry. WUaS has open wiki subjects about many of the academic subjects I've mentioned in this email, with some MIT OpenCourseWare on these wiki pages as well. 

So while my time is very focused on developing all-languages' World University and School and related online universities (~204) - and WUaS is deeply in need of financial support - and beginning a second virtual Harbin book, what would be the next steps to explore becoming a part of your dissertation committee?   

Best wishes, and sincerely, 

Scott

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