Digitizing Early Material Culture: from Antiquity to Modernity
A seminar to be held in conjunction with CaSTA (the Canadian Symposium on Text Analysis) 2008: New Directions in Text Analysis, a Joint Humanities Computing, Computer Science Seminar and Conference at University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, 16-18 October 2008
A “Digitizing Early Material Culture: from Antiquity to Modernity” seminar will be held at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon 16 October 2008 and will feature guest speakers: * Meg Twycross, Professor Emeritus of English, Lancaster University, and Executive Editor of Medieval English Theatre (new speaker, replacing Melissa Terras) * Lisa Snyder, Associate Director of the Experiential Technologies Centre, University of California Los Angeles
It will be held in conjunction with CaSTA 2008, 17-18 August, featuring guest speakers: * David Hoover, Professor of English at New York University (keynote) * Hoyt Duggan, Professor Emeritus in English at University of Virginia * Geoffrey Rockwell, Associate Professor in Humanities Computing and Multimedia at University of Alberta * Cara Leitch, PhD candidate in English at University of Victoria
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS FOR “DIGITIZING EARLY MATERIAL CULTURE: FROM ANTIQUITY TO MODERNITY”
The organizing committee also invites proposals (approx. 500-700 words) from Canadian and international scholars and practitioners working on the application of digital technology to the study of material culture up to c.1700 (computer science, archaeology, anthropology, geography, history, literature, etc.) for a pre-conference seminar on “Digitizing Early Material Culture: from Antiquity to Modernity.” Final submissions should aim to be 2,500-5,000 words in length and may address digital projects, programs of research, digital tools and practices, or theory related to the digitization of material culture to the end of the seventeenth century. Complete papers will be circulated in advance of the conference and participants (presenters and non-presenters) will sign up for and participate in two to three sessions on Thursday, 16 October, having read the complete papers (2-3 per session) in advance. Each session will comprise short introductory summaries by presenters (5-10 minutes) followed by extensive discussion of the circulated texts. Participants can expect to receive concrete and expert advice from other participants as they pool expertise (together with our invited speakers) to consider how the project, tool, or theory can be further developed toward publication or implementation.
All accepted papers will be published in the conference proceedings, which will be available subsequently through the conference Web-site. Complete papers will be published on the conference Web-site prior to the conference. Contributors to the seminar will also be invited to submit papers for a collection on “Digitizing Early Material Culture, from Antiquity to 1700,” to be edited by Brent Nelson (University of Saskatchewan) and Melissa Terras (University College London) for the New Technologies in Medieval and Renaissance Studies series at MRTS (series editors Ray Siemens and William Bowen).
Proposal abstracts should be sent electronically as a MS Word, WordPerfect, or pdf file to: Brent Nelson, conference committee chair, brent.nelson@usask.ca. In consideration of our change in speakers, the deadline for proposal submissions is now 15 June 2008, and complete papers will be due 15 September 2008
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS FOR “NEW DIRECTIONS IN TEXT ANALYSIS”
The organizing committee of CaSTA 2008 also invites proposals from Canadian and international scholars and practitioners working in any area of technical or textual studies addressing the conference theme, “New Directions in Text Analysis.” This will be the sixth annual CaSTA conference, held in association with TAPoR (the Text Analysis Portal). The two days of the conference (17-18 October) will feature keynote and plenary addresses, papers, panels, and posters on a wide range of topics related to the future of digital text analysis. Presentations might address such topics as• changing notions of what constitutes a text - the relationship of the material text (its physical manifestation) to the ideal text (the text as an abstraction of words in a particular combination) - editing and publishing digital texts for a changing readership - new media and digital textual scholarship - new tools and methodologies for text analysis - digital texts and analysis in the scholarly mainstream - working with graduate students and research teams
Abstracts of 500-700 words should propose presentations in one of three forms: - Single papers (max of 3,000 words) - Panels (three to five papers on a common theme) - Posters (max of 750 words), either hard copy (approximately two square metres of board space) or digital with terminal access provided. Posters will remain on display throughout the conference and there will be a designated session time for presenters to discuss their work. Abstract proposals should include the following information: title of paper, author's name(s); complete mailing address, including e-mail; institutional affiliation and rank, if any, of the author; statement of need for audio-visual equipment. Abstracts of papers should clearly indicate the paper's thesis, methodology and conclusion.
CaSTA 2008 especially wants to encourage the participation of graduate students, whose work is even now incubating many of the new directions that this conference will begin to explore. Cara Leitch (PhD candidate, University of Victoria) will conduct sessions of particular interest to graduate students and to projects that involve significant student training and participation. Travel grants will be available to students who travel to attend the conference.
All accepted papers and posters will be published in the conference proceedings, which will be available subsequently through the conference Web-site. Abstracts will also be published on the conference Web-site prior to the conference. Selected papers from the conference will be included in a special issue of the peer reviewed journal, Text Technology.
Proposal abstracts should be sent electronically as a MS Word, WordPerfect, or pdf file to: Brent Nelson, conference committee chair, brent.nelson@usask.ca In consideration of our change in speakers, the deadline for proposal submissions is now 15 June 2008
Please see the conference website for further developments: http://ocs.usask.ca/casta08