DH International Conference:
Media, and Methods: Digital Issue in East Asian Studies
February 3–5, 2023, Heidelberg, Germany
CALL FOR PAPERS
Submission Deadline: December 16, 2022 (extended)
Conference dates: February 3–5, 2023
A hybrid conference at Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg.
This conference of Digital Humanities focuses on the problems, challenges, and breakthroughs with digital technologies in East Asian Studies research. While emphasizing the field-specific perspectives that deal with East Asian materials, languages, and practices, it also aims to contemplate on the transformative and mediating role of digital technologies in the process of knowledge (re-)production. The latter concerns not only the digitization process that reproduces analogue materials into digital forms, but also the indication of digitalization that brings changes to the infrastructures and modi operandi at research and art institutions.
Digital Humanities embodies in research and practices a range of topics, from the digitization of premodern materials to the “born-digital” art productions, from computer recognition and analysis of texts and images to participatory research in digital communities, and from the creation of digital datasets to the construction of national cultural platforms. DH has developed into an “expanded field” structured by the relations and tensions among the diverse concepts and disciplines of its scholarship. In a post-digital era where a demarcation between the “analogue” and “digital” becomes less meaningful in the inevitable hybridization of the two, the far-reaching implications of the so-called computational turn for East Asian Studies in their research methods, institutional structures, and even disciplinary reconfigurations, are worth critical considerations. This conference invites scholars of East Asian Studies to reflect on the re-conceptualization of Materials, Media, and Methods at the intersection of the disciplinary specificities of areas studies and the medium specificity of the digital.
Submission
We invite submissions of abstracts for 20-minute presentations from scholars at all stages who employ digital tools, media, and methods in their research in the East Asian disciplines. We also encourage pertinent research that explores transcultural/trans-regional materials and practices beyond the given geographical demarcations, and topics that involve "analogue" and/or hybrid formats. Last but not least, we explicitly welcome graduate students and early-career academics to participate.
Interested submissions may focus on but are not limited to the following topics:
Interested participants shall kindly submit an abstract (up to 250 words) and a one-page CV by December 16, 2022, to the email address below.
Conference Medium and Format
The conference will be held in a hybrid format (online via Zoom and onsite in Heidelberg, Germany). Part of the conference will be recorded per presenters’ consents and available online (viewing only) for two weeks before deletion.
The conference is scheduled to host panels and feature three special lectures by senior scholars in the field, as well as a screening of animation films. Each panel consists of two to three 20-minute talks by participants and concludes with a 30-minute Q&A section. The conference language is English. Presentations in East Asian languages are welcome when translation is provided.
Participation in the conference is free. Limited funds are available to cover travel expenses for panelists.
Further information will be updated on our website: https://dhconf2022.github.io/
Questions can be forwarded to the organizers through email at dhconf2022@gmail.com
The conference is
Hosted by the Institute of East Asian Art History (IKO) and the Heidelberg Center for Transcultural Studies (HCTS), Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg; organized in cooperation with Nanjing University of the Arts;
Part of the project “Japanese Handscrolls and Digital Explorations: Materiality, Practices and Locality,” funded by German Research Foundation (DFG) under the priority program “the Digital Image.”
The screening and the discussion panel of animation films is organized in cooperation with the Nanjing University of the Arts.
Invited Guests and Keynote Speakers:
Dr. Donald Sturgeon Durham
University
Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science
Organizers:
Fengyu Wang M.A.
Research Associate & PhD Candidate
Institute of East Asian Art History
Jia XIE M.A.
PhD Candidate
Heidelberg Centre for Transcultural Studies
University of Heidelberg
Shimin ZHANG M.Phil
PhD Candidate
Institute of Chinese Studies
University of Heidelberg
Xiaojie CHANG M.A.
PhD Candidate
Institute of Chinese Studies
University of Heidelberg