The Inaugural Symposium of Japanese Association for Digital Humanities

Re-scheduled: 12–14 September 2011
Hosted by the Graduate School of Language and Culture, University of Osaka
Under the auspices of the Japanese Association for Digital Humanities

Co-Sponsored by:

International Institute for Digital Humanities

Center for Evolving Humanities, University of Tokyo

Center for Informatics in East Asian Studies, Institute for Research in Humanities, Kyoto University

British Academy/Japan Society for the Promotion of Science

SIG Computers and the Humanities, Information Processing Society of Japan

http://www.lang.osaka-u.ac.jp/~osdh2011/

Purpose

The field of humanities is undergoing a radical transformation in its encounter with rapid developments in the digital domain. In response to this situation, various efforts have been undertaken based on collaboration between the humanities and the information technologies in Japan and foreign countries. Recently, various related activities have been carried out under the rubric of Digital Humanities in Europe and North America. Progress in this area in Japan however, has been hindered in a couple of ways. For example, there have been limits to the extent of the collaboration between Japanese digital humanities specialists and their counterparts in the West brought about by the basic difficulties with the digitization of the characters and texts that compose Japanese resources. In general, the results of digitization efforts in Japan in the humanities disciplines have not been commensurate with the huge effort and expense made heretofore. To begin to resolve such issues, we intend to establish the Japanese Association for Digital Humanities (JADH), which aims to form an environment where international collaborative works are more fully realized. (Japanese Association of Digital Humanities)

We held two workshops in 2009 and 2010 at University of Tokyo and Osaka University in cooperation with ALLC in order to promote the concrete development of the methodologies of digital humanities. At the international Digital Humanities conference in London (2010), we held a panel session in order to introduce some of the major digital humanities projects in Japan to the international community. In addition, we invited Professor Harold Short (former chair of ADHO and ALLC) and provided the opportunity for Japanese DH specialists to discuss with him regarding the situation of digital humanities in Japan and internationally. Thus we have continued to provide opportunities for collaboration between international and domestic projects.

In maintaining this impetus, the JADH organizes its inaugural symposium, aiming to develop the connections between international and domestic activities on various levels.

Featured speakers:

Harold Short (King's College London)

Ray Siemens (University of Victoria)

Espen S. Ore (University of Oslo)

Jan Christoph Meister --- Workshop (University of Hamburg)

Lisa Lena Opas-Hänninen --- Workshop (University of Oulu)

Susan Schreibman --- Workshop (Trinity College Dublin)