CFP: Digital Americanists events at ALA 2024

The Digital Americanists Society solicits abstracts (c. 250 words) for a panel and a roundtable at the Society’s pre-arranged sessions at the 2024 American Literature Association Conference (Chicago, May 23-26, 2024). Deadline for submissions (to digitalamericanists@gmail.com) is Monday, January 15, 2024

If you are a graduate student or an independent researcher without institutional support, we encourage you to apply for our $100 travel grant. If you wish to be considered, please send a short statement of interest (one sentence suffices), as well as a note on your current institutional travel support, alongside your paper proposal. 

Panel: “Unique Archives”

The Digital Americanists seek proposals (c. 250 words) for a panel focusing on the archiving and digitization of “unique” collections of materials that are related to American literature or culture, broadly defined. These might be collections of non-traditional or non-canonical texts, genres, or forms; materials related to marginalized individuals or groups; or collections of materials that for either historical or technical reasons present unique challenges for those looking to digitize them. While we are open to the form that these talks might take, we welcome and encourage collaborative presentations and discussions of works in progress. We also encourage submissions from previous panelists if their archive has undergone significant updates or revisions. 

We imagine that panelists might discuss both the challenges (bureaucratic/institutional, economic, technical, theoretical) and affordances of dealing with such collections of materials, with an eye towards assisting other scholars who may encounter similar issues in their own digitization projects, and explaining how such collections offer new possibilities for scholarship, teaching, digital preservation, and/or public engagement.

Roundtable:Building Community-Based Digital Projects” 

(co-hosted with Recovery Hub for American Women Writers)

The Digital Americanists society and Recovery Hub for American Women Writers seeks brief proposals (c. 250 words) for contributions to a roundtable on strategies for ethically creating, maintaining, and teaching (with) digital projects, especially projects recovering the voices and perspectives of marginalized and/or historically resilient communities. This session looks to engage in and amplify dialogue about public research and citizen scholarship to share new ideas about what and how we co-create. We are especially interested in perspectives that engage with or radically extend institutional promises for diversity, equity, and inclusion.

We are envisioning this roundtable as a series of short, 5–10-minute presentations/opening statements followed by discussion. We will facilitate and encourage collaboration and coordination amongst the participants.

Topics might include but are not limited to the following:

  • Collaborative community-based work
  • Access and universal design
  • Environmental issues
  • Cultural protocols
  • Anti-/decolonial project development
  • Coalition-building
  • Working against whiteness as default in DH
  • Anti-racist pedagogy 
  • Student research & involvement 

For more information about the Digital Americanists, see the  “About” section on our website. 

CFP: Digital Americanists events at ALA 2023

The Digital Americanists Society solicits abstracts (c. 250 words) for a panel and a roundtable at the Society’s pre-arranged sessions at the 2023 American Literature Association Conference (Boston, May 25-28, 2023). Deadline for submissions (to digitalamericanists@gmail.com) is January 15, 2023.

If you are a graduate student or an independent researcher without institutional support, we encourage you to apply for our $100 travel grant. If you wish to be considered, please send a short statement of interest (one sentence suffices), as well as a note on your current institutional travel support, alongside your paper proposal.

Panel: Unique Archives

The Digital Americanists seek proposals (c. 250 words) for a panel focusing on the archiving and digitization of “unique” collections of materials that are related to American literature or culture, broadly defined. These might be collections of non-traditional or non-canonical texts, genres, or forms; materials related to marginalized individuals or groups; or collections of materials that for either historical or technical reasons present unique challenges for those looking to digitize them. While we are open to the form that these talks might take, we welcome and encourage collaborative presentations and discussions of works in progress. We also encourage submissions from previous panelists if their archive has undergone significant updates or revisions.

We imagine that panelists might discuss both the challenges (bureaucratic /institutional, economic, technical, theoretical) and affordances of dealing with such collections of materials, with an eye towards assisting other scholars who may encounter similar issues in their own digitization projects, and explaining how such collections offer new possibilities for scholarship, teaching, digital preservation, and/or public engagement.

Roundtable: “Building Ethical Digital Projects” (co-hosted with Recovery Hub for American Women Writers)

The Digital Americanists society and Recovery Hub for American Women Writers seeks brief proposal (c. 250 words) for contributions to a roundtable on strategies for ethically creating, maintaining, and teaching (with) digital projects, especially community-based projects. This session looks to engage in and amplify dialogue about public research and citizen scholarship to share new ideas about what and how we co-create. We are especially interested in perspectives that engage with or radically extend institutional promises for diversity, equity, and inclusion.

We are envisioning this roundtable as a series of short, 5–10-minute presentations/opening statements followed by discussion. We will facilitate and encourage collaboration and coordination amongst the participants.

Topics might include but are not limited to the following:

  • Collaborative community-based work
  • Access and universal design
  • Environmental issues
  • Cultural protocols
  • Anti-/decolonial project development
  • Coalition-building
  • Working against whiteness as default in DH
  • Anti-racist pedagogy 
  • Student research & involvement 

For more information about the Recovery Hub for American Women Writers, see their “Mission” page here.

For more information about the Digital Americanists, see the  “About” section on our website.  

CFP: Digital Americanist panel at ALA 2020

“Unique Archives”

Following up on the successful 2019 panel, the Digital Americanists seek proposals (c. 250 words) for a panel at the 2020 American Literature Association Conference (San Diego, May 21–24, 2020).

The panel focuses on the archiving and digitization of “unique” collections of materials that are related to American literature or culture, broadly defined. These might be collections of non-traditional or non-canonical texts, genres, or forms; materials related to marginalized individuals or groups; or collections of materials that for either historical or technical reasons present unique challenges for those looking to digitize them. While we are open to the form that these talks might take, we welcome and encourage collaborative presentations and discussions of works in progress. We imagine that panelists might discuss both the challenges (bureaucratic/institutional, economic, technical, theoretical) and affordances of dealing with such collections of materials, with an eye towards assisting other scholars who may encounter similar issues in their own digitization projects, and explaining how such collections offer new possibilities for scholarship, teaching, digital preservation, and/or public engagement.

If you are a graduate student or an independent researcher without institutional support, we encourage you to apply for our $100 travel grant. If you wish to be considered, please send a short statement of interest (one sentence suffices), as well as a note on your current institutional travel support, alongside your paper proposal.

Deadline for submissions is January 13, 2020. Send abstracts or questions by email to digitalamericanists@gmail.com. For more information about the Digital Americanists Society, see http://digitalamericanists.org. For information about the ALA and the 2020 conference, see http://americanliteratureassociation.org/

CFP: Digital Americanist roundtable at ALA 2020

“Digital Humanities in the American Literature Classroom”

The Digital Americanists solicit abstracts (c. 250 words) for a roundtable discussion at the 2020 American Literature Association Conference (San Diego, May 21–24, 2020).

This roundtable will consider the role of digital humanities in the teaching of American Literature. We will look to engage in and amplify dialogue about digital pedagogy, building upon recent scholarship like the 2018 collections Teaching with Digital Humanities and An Urgency of Teachers: The Work of Critical Digital Pedagogy, and to share new ideas about what and how we teach. Acknowledging the slippery meaning of “DH,” we invite panelists to think critically about how the digital shapes their institution’s course structure, classroom environment, assignments, or students’ daily work.  We are especially interested in presentations that focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion as they influence our digital pedagogy and institutional practice.

We are envisioning this roundtable as a series of 5-10 minute presentations followed by discussion. We will facilitate and encourage collaboration and coordination amongst the participants.

Topics might include but are not limited to the following:

  • Using digital & open-access textbooks
  • Teaching with digital tools, methods, and archives
  • Implementing DH at smaller/teaching-focused institutions
  • Attending to accessibility and inclusivity in digital pedagogy
  • Teaching digitally in low-income & low-tech institutions/areas
  • Digital work in publicly-engaged classrooms
  • DH, critical pedagogy, and the neoliberal institution 

If you are a graduate student or an independent researcher without institutional support, we encourage you to apply for our $100 travel grant. If you wish to be considered, please send a short statement of interest (one sentence suffices), as well as a note on your current institutional travel support, alongside your paper proposal.

Deadline for submissions is January 13, 2020. Send abstracts or questions by email to digitalamericanists@gmail.com. For more information about the Digital Americanists Society, see http://digitalamericanists.org. For information about the ALA and the 2020 conference, see http://americanliteratureassociation.org/.

Change in the board of the Digital Americanists

Effective November 1st, 2019, the makeup of the board has changed. Kevin McMullen has taken over duties as President, while Stefan Schöberlein moved into the position of Vice President. The Digital Americanists would also like to welcome Hayley C. Stefan aboard, who will be our new outreach director. 

The current board thus looks as follows:

Kevin McMullen (President) is a postdoctoral research associate in the English Department at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He has worked on the staff of the Walt Whitman Archive since 2010, and currently serves as the project manager and an associate editor. He is also the project manager of the NEH-funded Charles Chesnutt Digital Archive, as well as the co-creator and editor of Fanny Fern in The New York Ledger, an online digital edition of the newspaper writings of the nineteenth century writer Fanny Fern. His has published essays on both Whitman and Fern, and his ongoing personal research focuses on literary responses to the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850.

Stefan Schöberlein (Vice President) is an assistant professor of English and the Digital Humanities at Marshall University. He contributes to the Walt Whitman Archive and is one of the co-editors of the Movable Project, a geospatial, digital archive aimed at preserving and highlighting narratives of recovery from substance use disorder in Appalachia. His work has been published in journals like Digital Scholarship in the Humanities, American Literature, and American Literary Realism.

Stephanie M. Blalock (Secretary/Treasurer) is a Digital Humanities Librarian in the Digital Scholarship and Publishing Studio, at the University of Iowa Libraries. She is the Associate Editor of the Walt Whitman Archive, the Walt Whitman Quarterly Review, and The Vault at Pfaff’s. She is the author of “Go to Pfaff’s!”: The History of a Restaurant and Lager Beer Saloon, a peer-reviewed digital edition published by Lehigh University Press and The Vault at Pfaff’s, and she has also published several essays in the Walt Whitman Quarterly Review. Her research focuses on Walt Whitman at Pfaff’s Beer Cellar and the reprinting and circulation of Whitman’s short fiction.

Hayley C. Stefan (Director of Outreach) is an English Ph.D. candidate and 2019-2020 Humanities Institute Dissertation Fellow at the University of Connecticut. She focuses on the relationship between disability & race in contemporary multi-ethnic U.S. literature & culture, with wider research & teaching interests encompassing children’s/YA literature, comparative ethnic studies, digital humanities, & disability/mad studies. Her research has been published recently in Disability Studies Quarterly and MELUS.

CFP: Digital Americanists panel at ALA 2019

The Digital Americanists Society solicits abstracts (c. 250 words) for papers to be included in the Society’s pre-arranged session at the 2019 American Literature Association Conference (Boston, May 23-26, 2019).

If you are a graduate student or an independent researcher without institutional support, we encourage you to apply for our $100 travel grant. If you wish to be considered, please send a short statement of interest (one sentence suffices), as well as a note on your current institutional travel support, alongside your paper proposal.

Image of conference hotel

The panel will focus on the digitization of “unique” collections of materials that are related to American literature or culture, broadly defined. These might be collections of non-traditional or non-canonical texts, genres, or forms; materials related to marginalized individuals or groups; or collections of materials that for either historical or technical reasons present unique challenges for those looking to digitize them. While we are open to the form that these talks might take, we welcome and encourage collaborative presentations and discussions of works in progress. We imagine that panelists might discuss both the challenges (bureaucratic or institutional, economic, technical, theoretical) and affordances of dealing with such collections of materials, with an eye towards assisting other scholars who may encounter similar issues in their own digitization projects, and explaining how such collections offer new possibilities for scholarship, teaching, digital preservation, and/or public engagement.

Deadline for submissions is January 1, 2019. Send abstracts or questions by email to digitalamericanists@gmail.com. For more information about the Digital Americanists, see our “About” section. For information about the ALA and the 2019 conference, see http://americanliteratureassociation.org/.

Travel funding for graduate students

At the Digital Americanists business meeting in May of 2018, DA members present at the American Literature Association (ALA) conference in San Francisco, CA, unanimously voted for instituting a travel grant for graduate students to cover some of the costs associated with participating in DA-sponsored events. Our upcoming call for papers for ALA 2019 will include the option for graduate students to apply for $100 travel funding. Funding will be awarded based on financial need (preference may be given to graduate students without existing support for travel and professional development) as well as the strength of the proposed paper. Scholars without institutional affiliation/support will also be considered.

The Digital Americanists would like to thank those DA members who support our organisation with annual donations for making this travel grant possible. We see this grant as a first step to making the Digital Americanists more welcoming to early career scholars. If you would also like to support us, please consider becoming a donor.

Our CFP for ALA 2019 will go live soon.

Call for Applications: Woodress Scholar Research Grants (2019)

The Cather Project of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln announces the availability of a Research Grant for visiting scholars. This grant provides financial support for scholars to travel to and reside in Lincoln, NE, for four consecutive weeks, in order to conduct research on Willa Cather using Cather resources in Nebraska and at UNL.

Applications are invited from early career scholars, advanced graduate students, recent PhDs, and faculty not yet tenured. Projects should reflect the need for research at the UNL Archives and in Nebraska. Each Woodress Research Grant is $4,000 and the scholar is expected to be in residence in Lincoln for four consecutive weeks during March 1 – December 20, 2019. The Cather Project will assist with advice about travel, lodging, and a trip to the Willa Cather Foundation in Red Cloud, Nebraska (2 ½ hours by car) to enable the scholar to research materials in the Foundation’s archives and visit the area of Cather’s childhood.

The Cather Project produces the Willa Cather Scholarly Edition and Cather Studies, both published by the University of Nebraska Press. The Archives and Special Collections of the UNL Libraries hold the largest collection of Cather letters to and from her; edited typescripts; manuscripts; multiple editions of her works; and many other Cather-associated materials.

Funding for the grants is from the Roberta and James Woodress Fund (created from a gift by Roberta and James Woodress; Mr. Woodress was an eminent Cather biographer and emeritus professor of English at University of California-Davis).

To apply, please send, as e-mail attachments, to Beth Burke at eburke3@unl.edu, the following items:

  • your c.v.
  • a statement of no more than 3 pages describing the proposed research project and the importance of materials and resources at UNL to your project
  • a sample of scholarly writing (20-25pp: preferably focusing on Cather, though not necessarily exclusively)
  • In addition, two letters of recommendation should be sent directly by your recommenders to Beth (eburke3@unl.edu). Letters should be specific to the fellowship and proposed project rather than general letters of recommendation from your job placement dossier.
  • The deadline for submission of materials is DECEMBER 30, 2018 and we will inform successful applicants by FEBRUARY 1, 2019.

http://www.cather.unl.edu

CFP: Digital Americanists Panel at ALA 2018

The Digital Americanists Society solicits abstracts (c. 250 words) for papers to be included in the Society’s pre-arranged session at the 2018 American Literature Association Conference (San Francisco, May 24-27, 2018).

We are especially interested in submissions focusing on data-sets, texts, archives, tools or projects/methodologies that deal with intersections of gender, race, sexuality, nationality, and/or disability in literature and digital work. Submissions focusing on texts from any period of American literature are welcome.

In keeping with the Digital Americanists’ commitment to a broad understanding of American literature, culture, digital media, and computational methods, we are pleased to consider submissions that address any facet of the relationship between those terms or that question the terms themselves. Submissions from early-career scholars and members of underrepresented groups are especially encouraged.

Deadline for submissions is Monday, January 15, 2018. Send abstracts or questions by email to digitalamericanists@gmail.com. For more information about the Digital Americanists Society, see http://digitalamericanists.org. For information about the ALA and the 2018 conference, see http://americanliteratureassociation.org.