CFP: The Computational Turn
http://www.thecomputationalturn.com/
SWANSEA UNIVERSITY<http://sites.google.com/site/dmberry/home/location>
9TH MARCH 2010
Keynote: N. Katherine Hayles<http://fds.duke.edu/db/aas/Literature/
faculty/n.hayles> (Professor of Literature at Duke University).
Keynote: Lev Manovich<http://www.manovich.net/> (Professor, Visual
Arts Department, UCSD).
The application of new computational techniques and visualisation
technologies in the Arts & Humanities are resulting in new approaches
and methodologies for the study of traditional and new corpuses of
Arts and Humanities materials. This new 'computational turn’ takes the
methods and techniques from computer science to create new ways of
distant and close readings of texts (e.g. Moretti). This one-day
workshop aims to discuss the implications and applications of what Lev
Manovich has called 'Cultural Analytics’ and the question of finding
patterns using algorthmic techniques. Some of the most startling
approaches transform understandings of texts by use of network
analysis (e.g. graph theory), database/XML encodings (which flatten
structures), or merely provide new quantitative techniques for looking
at various media forms, such as media and film, and (re)presenting
them visually, aurally or haptically. Within this field there are
important debates about the contrast between narrative against
database techniques, pattern-matching versus hermeneutic reading, and
the statistical paradigm (using a sample) versus the data mining
paradigm. Additionally, new forms of collaboration within the Arts and
Humanities are emerging which use team-based approaches as opposed to
the traditional lone-scholar. This requires the ability to create and
manage modular Arts and Humanities research teams through the
organisational structures provided by technology and digital
communications (e.g. Big Humanities), together with techniques for
collaborating in an interdisciplinary way with other disciplines such
as computer science (e.g. hard interdisciplinarity versus soft
interdisciplinarity).
Papers are encouraged in the following areas:
- Distant versus Close Reading
- Database Structure versus Argument
- Data mining/Text mining/Patterns
- Pattern as a new epistemological object
- Hermeneutics and the Data Stream
- Geospatial techniques
- Big Humanities
- Digital Humanities versus Traditional Humanities
- Tool Building
- Free Culture/Open Source Arts and Humanities
- Collaboration, Assemblages and Alliances
- Language and Code (software studies)
- Information visualization in the Humanities
- Philosophical and theoretical reflections on the computational turn
+ Participation Requirements +
Workshop participants are requested to submit a position paper
(approx. 2000–5000 words) about the computational turn in Arts and
Humanities, philosophical/theoretical reflections on the computational
turn, research focus or research questions related to computational
approaches, proposals for academic practice with algorithmic/
visualisation techniques, proposals for new research methods with
regard to Arts and Humanities or specific case studies (if applicable)
and findings to date. Position papers will be published in a workshop
PDF and website for discussion and some of the participants will be
invited to present their paper at the workshop.
Deadline for Position papers: February 10, 2010
Submit papers to: http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=tct2010
Workshop funded by The Callaghan Centre for the Study of Conflict,
Power, Empire<http://www.swansea.ac.uk/humanities/ResearchCentres/
CallaghanCentrefortheStudyofConflict/>, Swansea University.
TheResearch Institute in the Arts and Humanities<http://
www.swansea.ac.uk/artsandhumanities/riah/> (RIAH) at Swansea
University.
+ References +
Clement, Tanya E. (2008) ‘A thing not beginning and not ending’: using
digital tools to distant-read Gertrude Stein’s The Making of
Americans. Literary and Linguistic Computing. 23.3 (2008): 361.
Clement, Tanya, Steger, Sara, Unsworth, John, Uszkalo, Kirsten (2008)
How Not to Read a Million Books. Retrieved 10/11/09 from
http://www3.isrl.illinois.edu/~unsworth/hownot2read.html
Council on Library and Information Resources and The National
Endowment for the Humanities (2009) Working Together or Apart:
Promoting the Next Generation of Digital Scholarship. Retrieved
10/11/09 from http://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub145/pub145.pdf
Hayles, N. Katherine (2009) RFID: Human Agency and Meaning in
Information-Intensive Environments. Theory, Culture and Society 26.2/3
(2009): 1–24.
Hayles, N. Katherine (2009) How We Think: The Transforming Power of
Digital Technologies. Retrieved 10/11/09 from http://hdl.handle.net/1853/27680
Kittler, Fredrich (1997) Literature, Media, Information Systems.
London: Routledge.
Krakauer, David C. (2007) The Quest for Patterns in Meta-History.
Santa Fe Institute Bulletin. Winter 2007. Retrieved 10/11/09 from
http://www.intelros.ru/pdf/SFI_Bulletin/Quest.pdf
Latour, Bruno (2007) Reassembling the Social. London: Oxford
University Press.
Manovich, Lev (2002) The Language of New Media. MIT Press.
Manovich, Lev (2007) White paper: Cultural Analytics: Analysis and
Visualizations of Large Cultural Data Sets, May 2007. Retrieved
10/11/09 from http://softwarestudies.com/cultural_analytics/cultural_analytics_2008.doc
McLemee, Scott (2006) Literature to Infinity. Inside Higher Ed.
Retrieved 10/11/09 from http://www.insidehighered.com/views/mclemee/mclemee193
Moretti, Franco (2005) Graphs, Maps, Trees: Abstract Models for a
Literary History. London: Verso.
Robinson, Peter (2006) Electronic Textual Editing: The Canterbury
Tales and other Medieval Texts. Electronic Textual Editing. Modern
Language Association of America. Retrieved 10/11/09 from
http://www.tei-c.org/About/Archive_new/ETE/Preview/robinson.xml
Schreibman, Susan, Siemens, Ray & Unsworth, John (2007) A Companion to
Digital Humanities. London: WileyBlackwell.
Organised by Dr David M. Berry<http://www.swan.ac.uk/staff/academic/
Arts/berryd/>, Department of Political and Cultural Studies, Swansea
University. d [ punto ] m [ punto ] berry
swansea [ punto ] ac [ punto ] uk (d[dot]m[dot]berry[at]swansea[dot]ac[dot]uk)<
swansea [ punto ] ac [ punto ] uk (d[dot]m[dot]berry[at]swansea[dot]ac[dot]uk)?subject=The%20Computational%20Turn>
-—
Dr David M. Berry
Department of Political and Cultural Studies
School of Arts and Humanities
Swansea University.
Swansea
SA2 8PP
Wales, UK
Tel: 01792 602633
Web: http://www.swansea.ac.uk/staff/academic/Arts/berryd/