Wikipedia is many things: a free encyclopedia with aspirations to universal knowledge; the seventh most visited website in the world; a collaborative, volunteer-driven work-in-progress; a provider of information and misinformation; a “social influencer” and shaper of narratives; and a bane of, or boon for, schoolteachers. In this talk I will discuss Wikipedia as a cultural phenomenon that has become the focus of new interdisciplinary scholarship which examines its social roles, mechanics, and functions. Along the way, I will discuss ways of using Wikipedia in universities to teach research and writing skills and develop knowledge among students who can contribute to the platform as part of their coursework. I will also consider opportunities that Wikipedia can offer in cultivating new forms of “digital citizenship.” My analysis will draw on experiences at the University of Pennsylvania where, since 2019, I have engaged undergraduate and postgraduate students in filling content gaps in Wikipedia while sharing public-facing scholarship.
Heather J. Sharkey is a Professor in the Department of Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures at the University of Pennsylvania. She received her BA in Anthropology from Yale, her MPhil in Modern Middle Eastern Studies from Durham, and her PhD in History from Princeton. During the 2024-25 year, she is an Oliver Smithies Fellow at Balliol College. In Fall 2025/Winter 2025, she was a senior fellow in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. In 2024, she served on the inaugural advisory committee of the Humanities and Social Justice initiative of the Wiki Education Foundation and its Wikipedia Student Program. Her books include Living with Colonialism: Nationalism and Culture in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan (University of California Press 2003); American Evangelicals in Egypt: Missionary Encounters in an Age of Empire (Princeton University Press 2008); and A History of Muslims, Christians, and Jews in the Middle East (Cambridge University Press 2017). With Jeffrey Edward Green, she edited The Changing Terrain of Religious Freedom (University of Pennsylvania Press 2021). She is currently writing a book about global microhistory in the modern Nile Valley.
Professor in the Department of Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures, University of Pennsylvania
Heather served on the inaugural advisory committee of the Humanities and Social Justice initiative of the Wiki Education Foundation and its Wikipedia Student Program in 2024.