Dr. Deb Donig

UCLA

University of Cape Town

University of California, Davis

Freie Universität Berlin

Professor at California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo

Oakland, California, United States

University of California, Berkeley

Faculty Lecturer

Ph.D., UCLA English Literature (2017)
Founder, Ethical Technology Initiative @ Cal Poly
Fellow, Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation

My research focuses on the evolution of global literary and political networks across multiple media platforms. I hold expertise in three major areas:

- Ethical and humane technology
- Literature, data analytics, and globalization of literary and political networks
- Literature, law, and human rights

My work at Cal Poly includes leading the university's initiative on diversity, equity, and inclusion, and collaboration with the Center for Expressive Technologies.

Read more about my work in ethical technology here:
<a href="https://www.etcalpoly.org/our-team">https://www.etcalpoly.org/our-team</a>

Links:

Ethical Tech @ Cal Poly:
<a href="https://www.etcalpoly.org">https://www.etcalpoly.org</a>

10 Best UCLA Professors Who Ooze Passion in Everything They Do
<a href="http://lapost.us/?p=7974">http://lapost.us/?p=7974</a>

Personal Website:
<a href="https://debdonig.wordpress.com/">https://debdonig.wordpress.com/</a>

<a href="http://Academia.edu">Academia.edu</a> Profile:
<a href="http://ucla.academia.edu/DebDonig">http://ucla.academia.edu/DebDonig</a>

California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo

Professor

Consulted on the Amazon Studios series The Hunt, produced by Jordan Peele, specifically on matters related to literary portrayals of the Holocaust and other issues related to the Jewish community. Read and suggested edits on scripts, consulted with writers and showrunners, guided creative decisions of the series of the series from initial story outlining to production.

Amazon Studios

Consultant

Authored Higher Education policy for the first 100 days in office and reviewed policy memos for the Biden strategy team. Worked with the policy team to identify key issues in higher education for the administration. Coordinated policy drafts and reviews.

Biden for President

Policy Expert

Lecturer

- Collaborated with industry leaders, CEO, and Advisory Board to develop global strategy and to identify key investors and stakeholders.
- Wrote and edited publicity material, reports, and speaking points that articulated and defined organizational vision and goals.
- Worked with local and global leaders to develop collaborative networks across leaders and industries.

AlmaLinks

University of California, Los Angeles

I teach in the English department at UCLA. I research the intersection of globalization, digital humanities, and law.

<a href="https://debdonig.wordpress.com/">https://debdonig.wordpress.com/</a>

My research treats the evolution of tribunal testimony from the trials following the Holocaust, specifically the Eichmann and Nuremburg trials, to the development of International Criminal Courts. I argue that in the wake of the Nuremberg trials of 1945-1946, concern about how to establish evidence for atrocity becomes the major preoccupation for legal representations of human rights violations. I trace how legal discourse becomes dependent on literary modes of representation in order to substantiate the reality of large-scale violence and human suffering in the context of post-1945 human rights legislation. I argue that at key moments, legal arguments turn to fictions and figurations in their attempts to establish the facts of atrocity. Prominent cases of atrocity taken up by international law come to rely on fiction and figuration to provide the coherence missing in factual evidence. I trace how representations of atrocity after 1945 take on internationally recognizable markings, and how this happens simultaneously as atrocity becomes increasingly subject to new international human rights legislation.

From the origins of this discourse in the trials following the Holocaust, I investigate its global path, including the South African TRC, the development of legal discourse around environmental and ecological disaster in Bhopal, India, the rise of international court procedures and the limitations of international courts to address atrocity perpetrated by non-state actors, including corporations, and finally retroactive applications of human rights discourse onto atrocities of the past, including the transatlantic slave trade. My research intervenes into contemporary international human rights concerns, policy development, and the discursive development of moral pedagogy in the wake of global atrocity.

PhD Candidate, UCLA English Department

- Worked with the CEO and CTO to develop content for social media start-up platform and to strategize platform development, venture capital, and publicity.
- Cultivated and organized a strategy for developing user networks and communities

BoredAt, Inc.

Chief Content Officer, Editor

- Worked with the American Association of Holocaust Survivors and the Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston to develop organizational strength and community relations
- Spearheaded the development of a teaching curricula for Holocaust studies
- Developed government and international diplomatic relations
- Raise funds and cultivate donors, and planned programs on behalf of the foundation.