18 November 2011

Kyoto, Japan.  Soushi-kan Conference Hall, Ritsumeikan University.  In conjunction with the Second International Symposium on Digital Humanities for Japanese Arts and Cultures (DH-JAC2011, 19-20 November 2011; http://tinyurl.com/4yakpa7)

Proposals due 20 September 2011

Digital technology is fundamentally altering the way we relate to writing, reading, and the human record itself. The pace of that change has created a gap between core social/cultural practices that depend on stable reading and writing environments and the new kinds of digital artefacts-electronic books being just one type of many-that must sustain those practices now and into the future.

This one-day gathering explores research foundations pertinent to understanding new practices and emerging media, specifically focusing on work in textual and extra-textual method, in itself and via exemplar, leading toward [1] theorizing the transmission of culture in pre- and post-electronic media, [2] documenting the facets of how people experience information as readers and writers, [3] designing new kinds of interfaces and artifacts that afford new reading abilities, [4] conceptualizing the issues necessary to provide information to these new reading and communicative environments, [5] reflection on interdisciplinary team research strategies pertinent to work in the area, and beyond.

Featured speakers include Neil Fraistat (U Maryland), Kozaburo Hachimura (Ritsumeikan U), and Masahiro Shimoda (U Tokyo), with a special welcome from Mitsuyuki Inaba (Ritsumeikan U).

The gathering is offered in conjunction with the Second International Symposium on Digital Humanities for Japanese Arts and Cultures (DH-JAC2011) (19-20 November 2011; http://tinyurl.com/4yakpa7) and is sponsored by the Japanese Association for Digital Humanities, the Digital Humanities Center for Japanese Arts and Cultures at Ritsumeikan University, the Implementing New Knowledge Environments (INKE) research group, and the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).  Earlier gatherings of this group have taken place in conjunction with the Text & Literacy conference (December 2010; sponsored by the National Library of the Netherlands, the Book and Digital Media Studies department of Leiden University, INKE and SSHRC), and at the University of Victoria (October 2009; sponsored by INKE and SSHRC).

We invite paper and poster/demonstration proposals that address these and other issues pertinent to research in the area. Proposals should contain a title, an abstract (of approximately 250 words) plus list of works cited, and the names, affiliations, and website URLs of presenters; fuller papers will be solicited after acceptance of the proposal. Please send proposals before 20 September 2011 to siemens [at] uvic.ca.