I love the open, freewheeling conversations commonly found at THATCamps, but I sometimes wish that some sessions were more grounded in specificity–and that participants could get CV-worthy credit for leading them. At the Texas Digital Humanities Consortium’s May 27 mini-conference, we aim to mashup the best of THATCamp and traditional conferences: to provide a forum where a researcher or group of researchers will present their work for 15 minutes and then lead the participants in discussion or experimentation inspired by the presentation for the rest of the hour. We hope that this hybrid approach will give presenters the opportunity to share their work, get credit for it, and receive feedback on it and participants to explore issues raised by the session and generate new insights. This approach resembles one of my favorite class formats: begin with a brief lecture to establish the context, then launch into a dynamic discussion to allow for deeper exploration. For example, presenters might discuss a project to create a digital audio archive, then facilitate a discussion about challenges such as annotation and digital preservation. Or a session might focus on a GIS project to map patterns of oppression in a particular region, opening up into a conversation about how to deal with uncertainty in data and include the perspectives of oppressed communities. We’re open to a variety of approaches. All proposals will undergo peer review, which will ensure the quality of the conference. Please see the CFP at https://conferences.tdl.org/tcdl/index.php/TCDL/index/pages/view/txdhc
The Texas Digital Humanities Consortium is organizing this mini-conference in collaboration with the fine folks at the Texas Conference on Digital Libraries (TCDL); it will be held immediately after TCDL at the Commons Learning Center on the J.J. Pickle Research Campus in Austin, Texas. We intend to keep the mini-conference to about 50 registrants, which should allow for rich conversation and networking. Through the event, we hope to deepen connections among scholars, librarians, cultural heritage professionals, technologists and graduate students.
The deadline for proposals is coming up soon on February 12, 2016 (note the new deadline). Feel free to send any questions to lisamspiro@gmail.com, and please help spread the word about the event. We look forward to some terrific proposals.
[cross-posted to TXDHC]
Digital Scholarship in the Humanities 