Special invitation to ACCUTE members from the CSDH/SCHN

The Canadian Society for Digital Humanities invites scholars, practitioners, and graduate students to submit proposals for papers, panels, digital demonstrations, and special 90-minute workshop “activities” for its annual meeting, which will be held remotely as part of the 2021 Congress of the Social Sciences and Humanities, University of Alberta, from Sunday, May 30th to Thursday, June 4th, 2021. We encourage submissions on all topics relating to both theory and practice in the evolving field of the digital humanities. 

This year, we extend a special invitation to ACCUTE members to propose jointly-organized papers for a special Annual ACCUTE / CSDH/SCHN Roundtable that will feature themes and topics promoting dialogue between the associations. Proposals will follow the same guidelines as other CSDH/SCHN submissions but will be listed in both conference schedules.   

In addition to our regular open call for presentations, we are particularly interested in papers that address the Congress 2021 theme of “Northern Voices”:

1. How can Indigenous communities and knowledge transform DH research & scholarship?
2. What are existing or potential strategies to improve representation of marginalized or historically excluded groups in DH research & scholarship?
3. How have our remote activities during COVID changed the way that we approach the practices of, and the community of, digital humanities?
4. How can COVID-related developments help us better understand and engage “remote” communities that have historically been excluded from digital infrastructure?
5. More generally, what role can DH play in reconceptualizing how we think about communities and the various relationships between them?

Format. In our remote format, each session will last an hour. Each presenter will post a paper or a slideshow or a video before the conference. Attendees to the conference will be expected to review the session materials beforehand. During the session, each presenter will have 2-5 minutes to summarize their work, after which a designated responder will provide general comments on all the work and who will lead off our more traditional question-and-answer format.

Activities. This year, each of the five days of the conference will end with a 90-minute “activity,” led by an individual or a team, and we are also seeking proposals for inventive and clever group projects or collaborations such as workshops, hackfests, tutorials, games, creative practises (e.g. crafting, making) groups, or other ideas. Accepted proposals will be eligible to receive a $250 subvention to help offset any costs that leaders might incur as they strategize, organize, and implement their projects (e.g. Arduino kits, craft supplies, mailing materials to workshop participants). We encourage graduate students and emerging scholars to apply and we particularly encourage faculty members to mentor students and emerging scholars in these proposals. Activity proposals should be submitted via Google form to https://bit.ly/CSDHSCHN2021Activity. The deadline is 15 January 2021.

Proposals for all other conference materials — papers (in a traditional 20 minute length), digital demonstrations, and panels (2-6 speakers for a 60-minute session) — should be submitted to https://www.conftool.net/csdh-schn-2021/. Submissions for all proposals will be accepted until 15 January 2021.

●      Paper abstracts should be 500 words, and should specify your thesis, methodology and conclusions.

●      Panel proposals should have a brief introduction to the topic, a list of presenters, and a 250-500 word abstract for each paper.

●      Proposals for digital demonstrations of innovative projects or tools should be 250 words and should introduce the tool or project, the intended audience, and what stage of development the project is in. Organizers should give some thought to how they might like to balance asynchronous and synchronous components of their demonstrations. We encourage projects developing software to apply for this venue.

Please note that all presenters and instructors must be members of CSDH/SCHN at the time of the conference.

Scholars in the digital humanities are engaged in diverse digital and computer-assisted research, teaching, and creation. CSDH/SCHN welcomes proposals from all constituencies and disciplines, and encourages applications from women, Indigenous people, people of colour, LGBTQ2+, or other underrepresented groups.

Selected papers from the conference will appear in special collections published in the CSDH/SCHN society journal, Digital Studies/Le champ numérique (http://www.digitalstudies.org).

2021 Program committee: Harvey Quamen (program chair), Kim Martin, Matt Huculak, Julia Polyck-O’Neill, Erin O’Neil, and Lydia Zvyagintseva (local organizer).