The program for SDH-SEMI’s 2012 conference at Congress in Waterloo, May 28-30, is now available at www.sdh-semi.org/conference/sessions.php.  Those wishing to attend the conference should renew their membership at the Literary and Linguistics Computing website and then register through the Congress 2012 website.

Our keynote speaker and recipient of this year’s award for Outstanding Achievement for Computing in the Arts and Humanities is Ronald Tetreault (Dalhousie University).

The conference will also present joint sessions with ACCUTE and Canadian Game Studies Association/Association Canadienne d’Études Vidéoludiques (see post below).  Proposals should specify any preference for inclusion in this joint session.

Proposals for papers (20 min.), posters, and panels or roundtables (2 -6 speakers for a 1½ hour session) will be accepted until 1 February 2012 and must be submitted at www.sdh-semi.org/conference/.  Abstracts should be between 200 and 400 words long, and should clearly indicate the paper’s thesis, methodology and conclusions. There is a limited amount of funding available to support graduate student travel.  Please note that all presenters must be members of SDH/SEMI at the time of the conference.

Selected papers from the conference will appear in a special collection published in the society journal, Digital Studies/Le champ numérique (www.digitalstudies.org).

Program committee: Brent Nelson (program chair), Aimée Morrison (local organizer), Eric Moore, Harvey Quamen, Jon Saklofske, Susan Brown, Stéfan Sinclair, Dan O’Donnell, Michael Eberle-Sinatra

À la croisée des chemins: Le savoir  face à un monde incertain
Réunion annuelle de 2012 de la Society for Digital Humanities / Société pour l’étude des médias interactifs (SDH/SEMI)

La Société pour l’étude des médias interactifs invite chercheurs et étudiants aux cycles supérieurs à soumettre des propositions de communication et de session pour sa réunion annuelle, qui se tiendra au Congrès 2012 de la Fédération canadienne des sciences humaines à l’Université Wilfrid Laurier et l’Université de Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, du 28 au 30 mai (congress2012.ca/).

La Société souhaite encourager en particulier des propositions concernant le thème central de la réunion : « À la croisée des chemins : Le savoir  face à un monde incertain ». Bien que le thème du congrès de cette année soit bien adapté aux intérêts de la SDH/SEMI, nous encourageons également toute communication qui traite des sciences humaines numériques, tant au niveau théorique que pratique.

Ronald Tetraul (Dalhousie University), récipiendaire du prix 2012 pour une contribution exceptionnelle dans le domaine des arts et sciences humaines informatiques, sera notre conférencier plénier.

La conférence présentera aussi des sessions conjointes avec ACCUTE et le Canadian Game Studies Association/Association Canadienne d’Études Vidéoludiques.  Les participants devraient indiquer leur intérêt à participer aux sessions conjointes.

Les propositions de communication (20′), posters et de session ou table-ronde (2-6 participants pour une période d’une heure trente) seront acceptées jusqu’au 1 février 2012 et doivent être soumises à www.sdh-semi.org/conference/.  Les résumés devraient compter entre 200 et 400 mots, et indiquer clairement la thématique, méthodologie, et conclusion. La société a des fonds limités pour les frais de déplacements pour les étudiants.  Veuillez noter que tout présentateur devra être membre de la SDH/SEMI au moment de la conférence.
Une sélection des présentations de la conférence sera publiées dans un numéro spécial du journal de la Société, le Digital Studies/Le champ numérique (www.digitalstudies.org).

Comité scientifique: Brent Nelson (program chair), Aimée Morrison (local organizer), Eric Moore, Harvey Quamen, Jon Saklofske, Susan Brown, Stéfan Sinclair, Dan O’Donnell, Michael Eberle-Sinatra

CGSA (Canadian Game Studies Association), SDH-SEMI (SDH/SEMI. Society for Digital Humanities / Société pour l’étude des médias interactifs) and FSAC/ACEC (Film Studies Association of Canada / Association Canadienne d’études Cinématographiques) are co-sponsoring a cross-listed joint panel at Congress 2012 (congress2012.ca/) focussed on the theme of “Occupying Crossroads”. Traditionally, “crossroad” intersections are spaces of transition and choice from which a single direction needs be selected from among many. “Occupying Crossroads” references the recent “Occupy” movements that redefine transitional spaces as destinations and which create collective spaces for fruitful discussions and new partnerships/ideas. Who says that crossroads have to symbolize uncertainty? With this in mind, we would like to ask–from the standpoint of video game studies, digital humanities and film studies points of view: Is it beneficial to hold onto our unique disciplinary perspectives within comparative media environments? Do such perspectives serve as stable and helpful foundations for bridge-building, or do they unnecessarily reinforce territorial “silos” in an age of transmedia imitation, emulation and translation? We welcome proposals for papers that celebrate or resist such uncertainty and which draw from one or more of the perspectives represented by the co-sponsoring associations.

Please indicate in your proposal that you wish to be considered as part of this co-sponsored panel. Proposals that are not accepted for this special session will still be reviewed by SDH-SEMI conference organizers for possible inclusion in the broader SDH-SEMI program.

Proposals can be submitted up to 1 February 2012 through the SDH-SEMI conference site at www.sdh-semi.org/conference/.  See the post above for the general SDH/SEMI call for papers.

Call for Papers

The Textual Studies team of INKE (Implementing New Knowledge Environments) wish to invite presentation proposals for Beyond  Accessibility: Textual Studies in the 21st Century .
June 8, 9, and 10, 2012, University of Victoria, Victoria BC, Canada.
Keynote speakers: Adriaan van der Weel (Leiden University) and Sydney Shep, (Victoria University of Wellington)

At the end of the 20th century, textual studies witnessed a revolution in accessibility to texts with the explosion of the internet.  Now we simply take it for granted that digital processes infuse every step of our study, editing, production, and dissemination of texts. The Textual Studies team of INKE invites presentations that address the questions “What is the state of textual studies in the 21st century? What is the important work of textual studies in the 21st century? What are the outstanding issues, challenges, concerns, emerging trends, methods, attitudes, and exciting developments in textual scholarship?  Papers may address such questions as

• What is the state of the scholarly edition after the transition from print to print and digital?
• What is the impact on the material book and on book history of the different kinds of access enabled by the digital medium?
• How have authorship attribution studies been transformed by access to so many more searchable texts?
• How has the new age of access to materials affected the state of textual studies in various regions of the globe?
• How well are scholars being served by traditional and emerging infrastructures for the study, creation, production, and dissemination of texts?
• What is the future of, for example, the study of readership and letter writing, genetic editing, and reception history?

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Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations

• 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)

SDH/SEMI is a member of the Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations. For more information on the conference, please see the website: www.dh2012.uni-hamburg.de/

As ever‐stricter copyright tightens control over the modes of literary production (and, in the process, criminalizes growing numbers of citizens and consumers), critical scholarship is urgently needed to intervene on the question of copyright: once a staple stimulus for literary and cultural production that now tends more to stifle it. As William St Clair shows in The Reading Nation in the Romantic Period, copyright, or intellectual property (IP), represents a foundational but under‐ examined condition of literary production; today, the regulation of IP is changing fast, in international copyright law (ACTA), Canadian copyright law (Bill C‐32), and debates over copyright in Canadian education (e.g. Access Copyright, fair dealing, and Open Access). Many of these changes in IP regulation are prompted by digital media, and both IP regulation and new media networks now powerfully influence literary production and reception (e.g. Google Books, Scribd). The changing IP policy environment has polarized interests into a “copyfight” between copyright “maximalists” (e.g. corporate intermediaries that lobby for term extensions and litigate against consumers) and a “copyleft” of critical creators, scholars, and organizations (e.g. alternative licensing initiatives like Creative Commons). This session invites papers on the relationship between literature, copyright, and the copyfight.

2011 Award for Outstanding Achievement, Computing in the Arts and Humanities

The leading academic society in Canada in the field of digital humanities has awarded a 2010 Award for Outstanding Achievement for Computing in the Arts and Humanities to Margaret Conrad of the University of New Brunswick.

Dr. Conrad, Professor Emerita at the University of New Brunswick, is a distinguished scholar of History and Women’s Studies who has had a shaping impact on the understanding of Canada’s past. She credits computational tools—word processing and email—with her impressive and typically collaborative scholarly output later in her career, after personal computing became available. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, the recipient of the Queen’s Golden Jubilee Medal, and an Officer of the Order of Canada. Continue reading »

We’re pleased to launch our new SDH/SEMI website! We hope relevant information will be easier to find and more up-to-date.

Nous sommes ravis de dévoiler le nouveau site web de SDH/SEMI! Nous espérons que les informations pertinentes seront plus faciles à trouver et plus à jour.

2010 Award for Outstanding Achievement

The leading academic society in Canada in the field of digital humanities has awarded a 2010 Award for Outstanding Achievement for Computing in the Arts and Humanities posthumously to Terry Butler formerly at the University of Alberta. The Society for Digital Humanities has presented the award annually since 2003 to acknowledge those who have made a significant contribution to computing in the arts and humanities whether theoretical, applied or in the area of community building. Butler was selected unanimously for his exceptional contributions to developing the community at the University of Alberta and nurturing new digital humanists.

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2010 Award for Outstanding Achievement

The leading academic society in Canada in the field of digital humanities has awarded its 2010 Award for Outstanding Achievement for Computing in the Arts and Humanities to Alan Burk of the University of New Brunswick. The Society for Digital Humanities/Société pour l’étude des médias interactifs has presented the award annually since 2003 to acknowledge those who have made a significant contribution to computing in the arts and humanities whether theoretical, applied or in the area of community building. Burk was selected unanimously for his exceptional contributions to the field.

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