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Digital Humanities 2012 – Call For Papers

Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations Digital Humanities 2012 – Call for Papers
Hosted by University of Hamburg 16-22 July 2012
http://www.dh2012.uni-hamburg.de/

Abstract deadline: November 1, 2011 (Midnight GMT).

Please note: The Program Committee will not be offering an extension to the deadline as has become customary in recent years. The deadline of November 1 is firm. If you intend to submit a proposal for DH2012, you need to submit it via the electronic submission form on the conference website by November 1

Presentations include:
Posters (abstract max of 1500 words)
Short papers (abstract max of 1500 words)
Long papers (abstract max of 1500 words)
Multiple paper sessions, including panels (overview max of 500 words)

Call for Papers Announcement

I. General Information

The International Program Committee invites submissions of abstracts of between 750 and 1500 words on any aspect of digital humanities, from information technology to problems in humanities research and teaching. We welcome submissions particularly relating to interdisciplinary work and on new developments in the field, and we encourage submissions relating in some way to the theme of the 2012 conference, which is ‘Digital Diversity: Cultures, languages and methods’.

With the Digital Diversity theme in mind, we especially invite submissions from scholars representing emerging digital humanities communities, scholars in the digital arts and music, in spatial history, and in the public humanities. The conference web site is at http://www.dh2012.uni-hamburg.de/ and will be developing over the next few weeks. The program committee aims for a varied program and for that reason will normally not accept multiple submissions from the same author or group of authors for presentation at the conference.

Proposals might, for example, relate to the following aspects of digital humanities:

research on data mining, information design and modelling, software studies, and humanities research enabled through the digital medium;

computer-based research and computer applications in literary, linguistic, cultural and historical studies, including electronic literature, public humanities, and interdisciplinary aspects of modern scholarship. Some examples might be text analysis, corpora, corpus linguistics, language processing, language learning;

the digital arts, architecture, music, film, theatre, new media, digital games, and related areas; the creation and curation of humanities digital resources;

the role of digital humanities in academic curricula.

In the spirit of the conference theme, and in consultation with the ADHO Standing Committee on Multilingualism & Multiculturalism (MLMC we particularly invite proposals on the potential and impact of digital methods and models in fostering multilingualism and multiculturalism, and on the challenges and potential presented to DH in terms of linguistic and cultural diversity. Proposals regarding endangered, lesser-known or minority languages and cultures are especially welcome, as are case studies demonstrating the successful integration of multilingualism and multiculturalism with digital methods. Selected papers may be eligible for inclusion in future ADHO publications devoted to the topic of multilingualism and multiculturalism.

The range of topics covered by digital humanities can also be consulted in the journal of the associations: Literary and Linguistic Computing (LLC Oxford University Press.

The deadline for submitting poster, short paper, long paper, and sessions proposals to the Program Committee is November 1, 2011. Since the deadline is firm, we urge you to begin preparing your proposals before the submission form is ready. Presenters will be notified of acceptance by February 1, 2012. The electronic submission form will be available on the conference site at the beginning of October 2011. See below for full details on submitting proposals.

A separate call for pre-conferences and workshops will be issued by the Program Committee shortly. In addition, proposals for non-refereed or vendor demonstrations should be discussed directly with the local conference organizer, Jan Christoph Meister, as soon as possible. His email address is jan-c-meister@uni-hamburg.de. All other proposals should be submitted to the Program Committee through the aforementioned electronic submission form on the conference web site.

For more information on the conference in general, please visit the conference web site http://www.dh2012.uni-hamburg.de/.

II. Types of Proposals

Proposals to the Program Committee may be of four types: (1) poster presentations; (2) short paper presentations; (3) long papers; and (4) sessions (either three-paper or panel sessions).

The type of submission preferred should be specified on the application; however, the committee may accept the application in another category based on the number of proposals and the nature of the abstracts. In part this addresses the incredible response to recent calls and in part recognizes that all applications are refereed and that the types of presentations are therefore equal in importance.

Papers and posters may be given in English, French, German, Italian or Spanish.

1) Poster presentations

Please submit an abstract of 750 to 1500 words. Poster presentations may include any work in progress on any topic of the call for papers as outlined above, computer technology, project demonstrations, and software demonstrations. Posters and software demonstrations are intended to be interactive, with the opportunity of the presenter to exchange ideas one-on-one with attendees and to discuss their work in detail with those most deeply interested in the same topic. Presenters will be provided with board space to display their work, computer connections may be available, and presenters are encouraged to provide a URL, business card, or handouts with more detailed information. Posters will be on display at various times during the conference, and a separate conference session will be dedicated to them when presenters should be present to explain their work and to answer questions. Additional times may be assigned for software or project demonstrations. Poster sessions may ! showcase some of the most important and innovative work being done in the digital humanities. In recognition of this, the Program Committee will award a prize for best poster.

2) Short papers

This is a new category of presentation, allowing for up to five short papers in a one-hour session, with the length held to a strict ten (10) minutes each in order to allow time for one to two questions per paper.

Short paper proposals (750 to 1500 words) are appropriate for reporting shorter experiments; describing work in progress; and for describing newly conceived tools or software in early stages of development. At the behest of the Program Committee, short papers may be presented as both a short paper and as a poster session. For research or projects further along in development, presenters should consider applying for a long paper presentation.

3) Long Papers

Proposals for long papers (750-1500 words) are for reporting substantial, completed, and previously unpublished research; the development of significant new methodologies or digital resources; and/or rigorous theoretical, speculative, or critical discussions. Individual papers will be allocated twenty (20) minutes for presentation and ten (10) minutes for questions.

Proposals about the development of new computing methodologies or digital resources should indicate how the methodologies are applied to research and/or teaching in the humanities, what their impact has been in formulating and addressing the research questions, and should include some critical assessment of the application of those methodologies in the humanities. Papers that concentrate on a particular application or digital resource in the humanities should cite traditional as well as computer-based approaches to the problem and should include some critical assessments of the computing methodologies used. All proposals should include relevant citations to sources in the literature.

4) Multiple Paper Sessions (90 minutes) are either:

Three long papers. The session organizer should submit a 500-word statement describing the session topic, include abstracts of 750-1500 words for each paper, and indicate that each author is willing to participate in the session;

or,

A panel of four to six speakers. The panel organizer should submit an abstract of 750-1500 words describing the panel topic, how it will be organized, the names of all the speakers, and an indication that each speaker is willing to participate in the session.

The deadline for session proposals is the same as for proposals for papers, i.e. November 1, 2011.

Several points about the sessions papers: papers that are submitted as parts of special sessions may *not* also be submitted individually for consideration in another category. Session proposers should justify bundling the three papers into a special session, i.e., explaining the added value of the special session as opposed to including the papers separately, particularly how the special session addresses the conference theme.

III. Format of the Proposals

All proposals must be submitted electronically using the online submission form, found at the conference web site at http://www.dh2012.uni-hamburg.de beginning October 1, 2011. Anyone who has previously used the confTool system to submit proposal or reviews should use their existing account rather than setting up a new one. If anyone has forgotten their user name or password, please contact Paul Spence at paul.spence@kcl.ac.uk

IV. Information about the conference venue

Hamburg on the river Elbe has about 1.8 million inhabitants within the city limits, making the old Hanseatic merchant city Germany’s second largest metropolis. Hamburg is characterized by its port, its international orientation and a cosmopolitan flair.

The University of Hamburg was founded in 1919. Today the Faculty of the Humanities is home to over 10,000 students. Since its inception Hamburg University has maintained a strong focus on foreign languages and cultures. To foster and to explore such diversity is a key task of the Humanities – and to provide theories, methods and tools to this end poses a particularly interesting challenge to the Digital Humanities. We hope you will join in the discussion on ‘Digital Diversity’ at the DH2012 and look forward to seeing you in Hamburg!

V. Bursaries for young scholars

A limited number of bursaries for young scholars will be made available to those presenting at the conference by the Association of Digital Humanities Organizations (ADHO). Young scholars who wish to apply for a bursary will find guidelines on the ADHO website http://www.digitalhumanities.org later this autumn (roughly November 1st).

More details will be issued about this subject in the next few weeks.

VI. International Program Committee

Susan Brown (SDH-SEMI – Vice Chair)
Arianna Ciula (ALLC)
Tanya Clement (ACH)
Michael Eberle-Sinatra (SDH-SEMI)
Dot Porter (ACH)
Jan Rybicki (ALLC)
Jon Saklofske (SDH-SEMI)
Paul Spence (ALLC – Chair)
Tomoji Tabata (ALLC)
Katherine Walter (ACH)