cfp.english.upenn.edu

Call for Papers and Posters:

“Digital Humanities: Literary Studies and Information Science”

British Modernities Group, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

March 8-9, 2013

Keynote Speakers:

Harriett Green, Literature and Languages Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Robin Valenza, Department of English, University of Wisconsin-Madison

The British Modernities Group invites graduate students to present papers and posters at its eighth annual conference: “Digital Humanities: Literary Studies and Information Science.” This conference will incorporate presentations from faculty and graduate students in a variety of disciplines, including English, library and information science, communication, and education. Keynote presentations from Harriett Green, English and Digital Humanities Librarian and Assistant Professor of Library Administration, and Robin Valenza, Associate Professor of English, will emphasize the importance of dialogue between the humanities and the sciences. We seek innovative research that studies media or literature from the perspective of information science and/or research that utilizes digital humanities approaches to modern and contemporary British literature (1800–present). The conference will ultimately explore the characteristics, objectives, and productive potential of the methodology now called “digital humanities.”

In recent years, literary studies have become increasingly concerned with issues of digital literacies and new media. Beyond converting texts into digital archives—including searchable databases—to broaden traditional literary analysis, literary critics have also questioned how digitization affects the material conditions of reading and writing. In a more practical engagement with digital computing, humanists are themselves employing digital methods for research and teaching. Examples include text mining, topic modeling, network mapping, and multimodal learning techniques. Use of such tools has necessitated collaboration with scholars outside the humanities, particularly in information science. These instances of collaboration promise benefits to all disciplines involved through a mutual exchange of tools and methods.

We invite paper, poster, or panel proposals that consider perspectives on media, literature, and information science related but certainly not limited to the following:

• Text mining, big data, and digital archives
• Computer programming
• Digital culture and internet studies
• New media and gaming
• Electronic literature/e-readers
• Systems and networks
• Posthumanism and digital machines
• Collaborative digital projects
• Multimodal pedagogy and digital literacies
• Copyright law and open access

Abstracts of no more than 250 words for individual papers and posters (350 words for fully-formed panels) should be submitted to modernities@gmail.com by January 18, 2013. Please include your name, along with your departmental and institutional affiliations. Accepted papers and posters will be notified by February 1, 2013. Visit our website, http://modernities.wordpress.com/, for more information about the BMG.