This collection seeks to bring together some of the most recent international scholarship and developments in the interdisciplinary fields of digital and public humanities. Alongside a critical exploration of the production, distribution and scholarship of culture in relation to digital media and technologies, the collection will examine the possibilities and challenges of publicly engaged scholarship in the digital humanities and beyond. Working with a broad definition of ‘public humanities’, we wish to interrogate the multifaceted interface of arts and humanities scholarship and engagement with wider ‘publics’ beyond academia, from literary and cultural heritage to creative arts and performance. The volume will explore key concepts, theories, practices and debates within both the digital and public humanities while also assessing how these two areas are increasingly intertwined. 

Chapter contributions may either deal with theoretical examinations of key concepts significant to the digital and/or public humanities, or offer examples of specific areas of digital and/or public humanities practice that are embedded in critical-theoretical reflections on the socio-political stakes and theoretical-methodological implications of such practice.  

Possible topics and areas for contribution include (but are not limited to):

- Theorizations of ‘publics’, communities and audiences
- Public intellectuals and the humanities in the public sphere
- The public face of digital humanities
- Creative arts, literacy and heritage in the community
- Literary and other cultural festivals
- Civic agency, arts and activism
- Cultures of commemoration and collective memory
- Exhibition design and institutional knowledge production
- Literary tourism
- Dark tourism
- Closed institutional settings (hospitals and prisons)
- Methodologies for public humanities
- Media and interface
- Identity and equality in public and/or digital humanities practice
- Ecology, climate and the digital
- Other topics that specifically engage with the intersection between the public and digital humanities

We have had an initial conversation with Palgrave who are interested in this proposal for their Palgrave Handbooks series, which typically features research-led essays at the forefront of developments in the field. No contract has been signed, and the publisher is requiring chapter abstracts with our full proposal before taking this any further.

Chapter abstracts of 300 words are due by January 25th 2019. The abstract should outline the approach and content, as well as research questions and tentative arguments/conclusions. We will inform you by the end of April 2019 if we are able to include your contribution with our volume proposal.

If contracted, final chapters of 7000-8000 words will be due sometime in 2020. 

Please send your abstract, together with a 100-word biographical statement, to digitalandpublichumanities@gmail.com.

Any queries before the deadline should be sent to both Tara Thomson (t.thomson2@napier.ac.uk) and Anne Schwan (a.schwan@napier.ac.uk).