Saturday, 10 January 2015

DIGITAL HUMANITIES: THE EXAMPLE OF ANTIQUITY


Today´s news deals with the field of Digital Humanities in general, and with a related 2015 conference in particular. Digital Humanities, in the broadest sense standing for the use of digital technology in studying objects of (traditional) Humanities, has been gaining importance throughout the last couple of decades. It is worth mentioning the umbrella organization Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations (http://adho.org/) which, apart from representing major international associations, funds the Digital Humanities Quarterly, a magazine that will keep you up to date with the most recent developments in the area. The special significance for the field of Antiquity can be seen in Gregory Ralph Crane´s professorship of Digital Humanities at the University of Leipzig. The US-American philologist´s position has been funded by the Alexander von Humboldt-Professur, a programme designed to bring prominent international scholars to Germany.

 

For more information on this specific field of interest, see e.g.:

Schreibman, Susan and Siemens, Ray and Unsworth, John (eds.): Companion to Digital Humanities. Blackwell Companions to Literature and Culture, Oxford: Blackwell 2004.

 

Please read the following information about the conference of Digital Humanities at Grenoble from the 2nd to the 4th of September 2015 including a Call for Papers. The deadline for abstracts is 15th of January 2015:

 

“The University ‘Stendhal’ of Grenoble 3, the Maison des Sciences de l’Homme-Alpes, L’Université Grenoble 2, the Humboldt Chair for Digital Humanities and HISOMA  organise the conference “Digital Humanities: the example of Antiquity”. The conference will take place in Grenoble, from the 2nd to the 4th of September 2015.

The goal of this conference is twofold: at the same time an assessment of existing methodologies and a looking forward to new ones. It also has the objective of evaluating current practices of the application of Digital Humanities to the study of antiquity, practices which are quite numerous but also sometimes disconnected from each other and without an overall understanding. The conference also aims to contribute toward the design of new projects and the opening new paths, by establishing a dialogue between scholars for whom the Digital Humanities are already familiar and those wishing to acquire knowledge and practice in this domain.

The confirmed Keynote speakers are Gregory Crane (Tufts University & University of Leipzig) and Charlotte Roueché (King’s College London). The conference will be preceded by a workshop, particularly aimed at doctoral students, but open to everybody.

 

The study of Antiquity encompass very large geographical, historical and linguistic domains: from the Mediterranean to the borders of Europe and Asia, from the end of Prehistory to the Middle Ages, and from Greek and Latin to the languages of the Near and Middle East. This study is also distributed among different disciplines: Linguistics, Philology, Literary Criticism, Philosophy, History, Archaeology, Epigraphy, Numismatics, etc. In all these disciplinary traditions, the application of computational techniques has been employed for several decades now, an application that has left quite a strong mark on the study of Antiquity. The employment of digital methods has also enabled substantial changes of methodology, the extent of which remains to be assessed.

 

Considering the diversity of such approaches in a context of research which is more and more internationalised, it seems worthwhile to present to scholars and PhD students an overview of current research in order to develop future endeavours.

 

The conference will be organised around four key topics: Editions of literary texts; Study of scholia and commentaries; Archaeology and Epigraphy; Prosopography and historical geography. Papers will focus on methodological questions and/or discuss general issues emerging within such topics. We also encourage proposals of posters presenting work in progress.

 

Please send your proposals of up to 300 words, in French or English (which will be the languages of the conference) by the 15th of January 2015 to the organisers:

icogitore@msh-alpes.fr

elena.pierazzo@u-grenoble3.fr

NB: In order to encourage the participation of young researchers, we will provide a limited number of bursaries. If you wish to be considered for one of these then please include a letter of motivation with your application.”

 

Besides, those responsible for the FIEC-Blog would like to take up the opportunity to wish you all the best for 2015. Thank you for reading.

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