Hi all,
The DNS is beginning to spread. I've added a rudimentary posting to a WP
blog at http://www.globaloutlookdh.org/
--
Daniel Paul O'Donnell
Professor of English
University of Lethbridge
Lethbridge AB T1K 3M4
Canada
+1 403 393-2539
Hi all,
I sent out an update on the exciting times we had in Cuba, but it looks
like it didn't work properly. I was at the end of my internet hour in
the hotel, so it may be that it didn't make it out before I was cut off.
Several members of this group were in Cuba at a meeting organised by
INKE in Havana (Neil Fraistat, Alex Gil, Ray Siemens, and me... I hope
I'm not forgetting anybody). On the "unconference" day, the group
(including many others from North America, Europe, Cuba, and Latin
America more generally) ended up devoting the lion's share of the
meeting to discussing the Global Outlook initiative, issues in
collaboration among researchers in High, Mid, and Low income countries,
and similar topics. We also had meetings with people from the Ministry
of Culture, the Casa de los Americas, and the National library about
various initiatives.
The time was extremely exciting and very productive. Among the outcomes
are a nascent proposal for a THaT camp in Cuba next November focussing
on Latin America and the Caribbean, discussions about establishing a
national DH organisation in Cuba that might initially join ADHO in an
observer function, participation in the Havana book fair this coming
February and an additional event in March, and some ideas about ways in
which specific researchers in Cuba might collaborate with various
projects elsewhere in the Caribbean and farther afield. About 30 new
people have also asked to join the list, about 1/2 from Cuba and the
rest largely from North America. Emails inviting them to confirm their
membership have just been sent out.
We also developed what looks like it might be a very exciting idea for
the money the University of Lethbridge is donating to the initiative:
establishing small research grants and bursaries for students and/or
early career researchers to propose and carry out research projects
looking at digital humanities capacity, infrastructure, and (for want of
a better term) "bibliography" in different regions and countries around
the world. I have a meeting scheduled with our VPR for early in January
to discuss the idea and make sure that it fits within the parameters of
the donation. This programme might produce a very useful body of
knowledge, I think.
Administratively, we are waiting for final ADHO approval of our proposal
(the latest version can be found here:
http://ubuntuone.com/187LiVZpJKwFNaRV0lZJeD). This should be finished by
Monday. Once this is approved, we probably should move on to
establishing officers and working
We have also bought the domain name globaloutlookdh.org for use for the
project and set up a twitter account @globaloutlookdh. We are waiting
for the DNS to propagate and then we will have a rudimentary webpage set
up early in the new year.
Finally, with regard to the conferences we were looking at:
*African DH*: I've received confirmation that the Canadian Society for
Digital Humanities is holding a slot for us for a session on Africa and
DH for the meeting in Victoria this June. Ray, Neil, and I were
discussing how we might integrate this with the Digital Humanities
Summer Institute (DHSI) which follows immediately afterwards, though I
don't think we've reached any conclusions yet.
*DH in China*: We'll know more about this after the DH 2013 sessions are
finalised and we've been approved by ADHO's Steering Committee. We
should be still planning on it, however, I believe.
As you can see, busy and fun times.
-dan
--
Daniel Paul O'Donnell
Professor of English
University of Lethbridge
Lethbridge AB T1K 3M4
Canada
+1 403 393-2539
Hi all,
Things are proceeding apace with the charter from the ADHO steering
committee. I've been asked to tighten some language and provide
additional information about concrete activities we are undertaking, but
I believe we are close to finishing the proposal.
Having the proposal accepted will be an important first step for the
idea we had of running a special session on DH in and on China: as
you'll remember, we put together what looked like it might be a decent
programme as the DH deadline came, but, partially as a result of how new
we are, were unable to finalise the speakers in time to place a
competitive proposal. We are hoping once we are approved at ADHO to ask
for some time for a special sponsored session instead.
Another opportunity is rapidly approaching as well: the Canadian Society
for Digital Humanities meeting in Victoria from 3-5 June (submission
deadline December 17): http://csdh-schn.org/2012/11/16/cfp2013/ Since
this meeting also abuts the Digital Humanities Summer Institute
(something that is going to become a regular feature of the Congress),
this may also provide a very constructive opportunity for speakers to
work closely with others from the larger community.
For this one, I was thinking that it might be interesting to put
together a session on DH in Africa. Titi Babalola who is a member of
this list and a graduate student in English here at Lethbridge has just
written a very interesting paper on impediments to and promises of DH in
Nigeria, which I think could make for a very interesting contribution.
We have also been discussing DH issues with the organisers of the
Afro-Hispanic conference scheduled for this Spring which will deal in
part in a more general way with some of the same issues. There was just
a discussion in the Chronicle about development issues in Higher
Education in Africa, including the need for networking initiatives such
as ours. And finally, the president of the Canadian Funding agency, Chad
Gaffield (a long time friend of our discipline) was one of a number of
people who approvingly retweeted a reference to our proposal to ADHO.
We still have two weeks to put together the three papers we would need.
If members of this group thought this was an interesting idea, I'd be
willing to work with anybody who was interested in in putting together
some language for a call later this week. I spoke with our Vice
President Research, and it seems like we might even be able to use some
of the money the University of Lethbridge is providing to provide
partial travel support to speakers from Africa who might not be
otherwise able to make it to Victoria... though of course the amount
available is quite limited. We could put in for a "Connections" grant as
well to find support.
What do you think? If we are going to do it, we should act this week to
get the call out.
--
Daniel Paul O'Donnell
Professor of English
University of Lethbridge
Lethbridge AB T1K 3M4
Canada
+1 403 393-2539