CFP: Peer Reviewed Cluster on Modernist Digital Humanities

From Practice to Theory: A Forum on the Future of Modernism and Digital Humanities

We are seeking argumentative position papers for “>From Practice to Theory: A Forum on the Future of Digital Humanities and Modernist Studies,” a prospective peer-reviewed cluster for the Modernism/modernity Print-Plus Platform.

From digital archives (The Modernist Journals Project, Modernist Magazines Project, Modernist Versions Project, the Modernism Lab) to digital production platforms (Modernist Commons); from experimental reading practices (Infinite Ulysses, The Hypertext Waste Land) to recovery projects (Orlando, The Modernist Archives Publishing Project), scholarship in modernism has been at the forefront of digital humanities practice. As the twentieth anniversary of the Modernist Journals Project approaches, such scholarship is ceasing to be a novelty, and it appears that a distinctive digital humanities particularly of and for modernism could emerge. Given that this is a moment of transition in modes of scholarly research, what could this modernist digital humanities look like?

This cluster will theorize emergent or possible relationships between modernism and the digital humanities and seeks to consider recent digital projects and/or scholarship in order to distil original theses about “the modernist digital humanities.” Why does it seem so productive to use digital humanities methods to explore modernism? Are the digital humanities reinventing or rebooting a kind of modernism? What new models of modernism could emerge out of our engagement with digital tools?

Papers might address:

·       Definitions of digital humanities tailored for modernism

·       Definitions of modernism as seen through the lens of digital humanities

·       New genres or types of modernist digital humanities scholarship

·       The modernist roots of contemporary digital cultures

·       The limits of digital humanities for understanding modernism

·       Barriers or threats to digital scholarship, especially those specific to modernist studies

·       The political affordances—or blindnesses—of digital humanities in addressing questions of gender, sexuality, race, empire, class, religion, etc

·       The economic or vocational contexts of digital scholarship, including literal costs and the question of professionalization in a difficult job market

·       The relationship between modernist digital scholarship and pedagogy

Preference will be given to polemical essays that reflect upon the position of digital humanities within modernist scholarship. Readings or examples from modernist art and literature should primarily be used in the service of this larger thesis, not as ends in and of themselves.

Please submit abstracts of 400 words Shawna Ross (shawnaross@tamu.edu) by December 15, 2015. The Print Plus Platform is an online environment, and we welcome and encourage electronic supplements to your writing (data, images, film, code, demo). Full essays of 3,000 words are due by March 1, 2016.