The Reverse Telescope: Big Data and Distant Reading in the Humanities
Rome, 26-28 January 2017
General information
The Associazione per l'Informatica Umanistica e le Culture Digitali (AIUCD)
is pleased to announce the sixth edition of its annual conference and invites
all interested scholars to submit a proposal.
The AIUCD 2017 Conference will be held from January 26th to 28th in Rome,
Italy, and it is organized by DigiLab (Sapienza University), in collaboration
with the DiXiT Marie Curie network (Digital Scholarly Editions Initial
Training). The DiXiT workshop “The educational and social impact of Digital
Scholarly Editions” is planned before the Conference. AIUCD 2017 will also host
the third edition of the EADH Day, on January 25th.
The AIUCD 2017 Conference will take place at Sapienza University, Palazzo
delle ex Vetrerie Sciarra, via dei Volsci 122, Rome.
Conference Topics
The main topic of the AIUCD 2017 Conference is the use of big data methods,
cultural analytics and distant reading in the Humanities. We would like to
explore the methodological and epistemological impact of these methods, their
application in the different fields of the Humanities and on various kinds of
media and digital resources, their effects on our comprehension of cultural and
historical phenomena and, finally, their consequences and repercussions on the
social and public perceptions of the Humanities.
We therefore encourage proposals on (but not limited to) the following
topics:
- Methodological and epistemological aspects of distant reading in the
Humanities
- Distant reading, close reading and scaled reading: relations and
interactions between hermeneutical tradition, quantitative analysis and new
computational methods
- Interaction and integration of methods of statistical/quantitative
analysis and formal logic methods, semantic web technologies and linked
data
- Quantitative and stylometry analysis, topic modelling and clustering for
literary texts, archival documents and cultural objects
- Authorship attribution and automatic text classification
- Applications and experimentations of data mining methodologies in
historical, artistic and archaeological research
- Network analysis and sentiment analysis applied to the Humanities
- Interaction between Natural Language Processing technologies and data
mining
- Computational analysis of multimedia resources: images, audio and
video
- Methods and techniques of visualization and their impact on knowledge
transfer in the Humanities
- Problems and strategies for sustainability of data produced during
research activities in terms of persistence, provenance and authenticity
- Cultural and social impact of humanity research produced with
computational methods
The deadline for submitting proposals is November 15th (midnight).
Notification of acceptance will be sent by December 15th.
Official languages of the AIUCD 2017 Conference are Italian and English.
However, it is possible to present in other languages if you provide
English slides or an English handout.
Proposals categories and submission
Proposal must be sent in the form of an extended abstract that specifies
the category (see below for details) using the ConfTool web-page:
http://www.conftool.net/aiucd2017
Proposals are invited for the following categories:
1. long paper (30 min: 20/25 min + 10/5 min for Q&A): the paper should
discuss innovative methodologies and their theoretical basis, experiences of
analysis and applications that are methodologically significant within a
discipline; presentations devoted to present a specific tool or resource
are acceptable only if they include a thorough critical discussion of the
methodologies used and/or a theoretical evaluation of the results
obtained;
2. short paper (15 min: 10/12 min + 5/3 min for Q&A): the paper should
present a mature research product or a research project;
3. panel (45 or 90 min, including Q&A): in the panel, a series of
presentations (max 6) should address a topic from the theoretical and the
methodological points of view; or give a critical assessment of the grounding,
methods and results of a research project; and
4. poster: mainly for presenting an ongoing project or the technical
details of a tool or a digital resource.
The conference proposals will be selected through single blind peer review
by scholars in the Humanities, Computer Science and/or Digital Humanities. At
the end of the evaluation process, the Program Committee may decide to move an
accepted proposal to a different category of presentation.
To submit a proposal, please sign in ConfTool (
http://www.conftool.net/aiucd2017).
When submitting a proposal, authors must specify keywords from those suggested
by the tool, in order to facilitate the review process.
Proposals structure and formats
Proposals must clearly present the goals of the paper, give a brief state
of the art, specify and discuss the chosen methodology and, if appropriate, the
results obtained or expected. Proposals should include a short bibliography.
Dimensions vary depending on the type of proposal:
- Long paper proposals should be at least 1000 words + bibliography;
- Panel proposals should be at least 500 words + 200 words for each of the
presentations + bibliography;
- Short paper and poster proposals should be at least 800 words +
bibliography;
When submitting the proposal, it is required to include a short abstract
(300 words) in ConfTool. For their proposal, authors must use the templates
found at the following addresses:
Valid formats are DOCX, DOC, ODT and PDF.
Official languages of the AIUCD 2017 Conference are Italian and English,
but it is possible to submit a proposal also in the following languages: French,
German and Spanish. In latter case, it is mandatory to provide the short
abstract in ConfTool in English.
Posters should be in Italian or English and in the A1 portrait (841mm x
594mm) format. Posters will be displayed in a dedicated space at the Conference
venue; display panels will be provided. Please bring your poster printed, as we
are unable to provide a printing service.
Personal laptop computers may be used at the poster display area. Should
your presentation include a laptop, please inform the organizing committee on
acceptance of your proposal.
Specific poster slams sessions (max 2 minutes for each poster) will be
scheduled in the Conference programme.
“Giuseppe Gigliozzi” Conference Bursary Awards
AIUCD will offer three bursaries awards of 250 € for early-career scholars
(student and non tenured lecturers) presenting papers (long or short) at the
conference. Eligible scholars can apply selecting the specific check-box at the
bottom of the abstract's submission form in ConfTool. Candidates papers will be
selected by reviewers.
Prior to the conference, the AIUCD Board will make a preliminary review of
all papers proposed by the reviewers, then will verify their eligibility and
compile a preliminary list of a maximum of 10 papers. Then a panel of reviewers
is recruited from AIUCD board members, program committee members, program
session chairs, and other experienced participants attending the conference.
During the course of the conference, one or more reviewers will unobtrusively
attend and observe each candidate presentation and make recommendations to the
Board. Winners will be selected by the Board at the end of the conference, and
the results will then be communicated during the General Assembly.
Please note that no more than one winner can be based at the organizing
institution.
International Programme Committee
Fabio Ciotti (chair) - Università di Roma Tor vergata
Gianfranco Crupi (co-chair e organizzatore locale) - Sapienza Università di
Roma
Stefano Asperti - Sapienza Università di Roma
Marina Buzzoni - Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia
Franz Fischer - Universität zu Köln
Mariella Guercio - Sapienza Università di Roma
Tiziana Mancinelli - Universität zu Köln
Cristina Marras - CNR ILIESI
Monica Monachini - CNR ILC
Elena Pierazzo - Université Grenoble Alpes
Massimo Riva - Brown University
Geoffrey Rockwell - University of Alberta
Francesco Stella - Università di Siena
Francesca Tomasi - Università di Bologna