Networked Humanities: From Within and Without the University

A Digital Humanities Symposium

February 15-16, 2013

The University of Kentucky

Writing, Rhetoric, and Digital Media Program

Keynote Speakers:

Kathleen Stewart, Professor of Anthropology, University of Texas

Malcolm McCullough, Professor of Architecture, University of Michigan

Of all the topics of interest to the digital humanities, the network has received little attention among digital humanities proponents.  Yet, we live in a networked society: texts, sound, ideas, people, movements, consumerism, protest movements, politics, entertainment, academia, and other items circulate in networks that come together and break apart at various moments. While there exist networked spaces of interaction for digital humanities work – such as HASTAC or specific university centers -  we still must consider how networks affect traditional and future goals of humanities work. Have the humanities sufficiently addressed the ways their work, as networks, affect other networks, within and outside of the humanities? What might be a networked digital humanities or what is it currently if it does, indeed, exist? Can an understanding of the humanities as a series of networks affect – positively or negatively - the ways the public perceive its research, pedagogy, and mission?

The University of Kentucky’s Writing, Rhetoric, and Digital Media Program invites proposals for a two day symposium devoted to discussion of the implications of a networked digital humanities. The symposium will bring together academic and professional audiences in order to rethink the taxonomy of humanities so that we emerge with a network of people and ideas beyond the traditional taxonomy of “humanities” work. Thus, talks will not be limited to traditional humanities areas of study. 

Possible topics might include (but are not limited to):

·      Public humanities work

·      Networks among disciplines

·      Ecologies

·      Animal and human networks

·      Online spaces

·      Mapping/Geography

·      Economics and the humanities

·      Labor and the humanities

·      Digital production of texts

·      Community work

·      Workplace organization

·      The university as network

·      Archives and Obsolescence

February 15-16, 2013

Panels, roundtables, performative pieces, and alternative forms of delivery are welcome and encouraged.

No registration fee to attend or present. Please send 250 word proposals to  Jeff Rice j.rice@uky.edu  by September 1, 2012.