Call for Presentations & Attendees

Background

Digital Humanities (DH) is an emerging research paradigm that brings computational methods to the humanities, arts, and social sciences, driven by the abundance of digitized and born-digital research materials. In Europe, DH has drawn significant attention from scholars, institutions, and research-funding agencies over the past decade, leading to numerous national and pan-European projects creating digital resources and infrastructures for DH scholarship. The significance of digital humanities is underscored by a variety of annual conferences such as DH Benelux (Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg), DHD (Digital Humanities in German-speaking areas), and the European Association for Digital Humanities (pan-European). The International DH Conference, held every two to three years in Europe, further demonstrates a strong European interest in DH.

However, European East Asianists have yet to find a dedicated space for effectively exchanging and discussing knowledge on digitally processing and analyzing research materials in East Asian languages. While scholars within each subdiscipline may be very familiar with each other’s work, Europe is still lacking a research community that addresses digital scholarship issues across all humanities disciplines concerned with East Asian regions and languages.

Objectives and Format

The Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin (Berlin State Library) and the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (MPIWG) invite applications for the conference “Charting the European D-SEA: Digital Scholarship in East Asian Studies,” which will take place on July 8–12 in Berlin. This conference aims to survey the current state of digital scholarship in East Asian Studies within Europe, to build a European community for East Asian scholars interested in digital scholarship, and to offer a platform for European scholars to obtain knowledge about key methods and resources created in cutting-edge digital projects in East Asian Studies worldwide. It also intends to foster an interdisciplinary dialogue, connecting scholars and technical experts (computer scientists, librarians, and archivists) working on East Asian regions to share knowledge on deploying digital methods that are often language-specific, and to exchange their experiences and challenges. The program includes:

• Pre-conference workshops (July 8–10): Each of the 3-hour workshops will be led by experts introducing key digital methods. We also encourage project leaders to submit proposals in which they demonstrate the resources, tools, and results produced in their projects.
• Conference (July 11–12): will be composed of short presentations (15–20 mins) to survey the current status of Digital East Asian Studies in Europe and beyond, spanning a wide range of fields (such as history, literature, arts, social sciences in Japanese-, Korean-, and Chinese-speaking regions), as well as the latest development in related archival institutions (libraries, museums, and archives) and infrastructural projects.

Call for Presentations (conference and/or workshops)

We welcome both humanities scholars and technical experts utilizing or developing digital resources, tools, and infrastructures, as well as educators exploring digital implications for research and teaching. You can present your work in the conference (15–20 minutes) or lead a hands-on workshop (3 hours). You may submit up to 3 proposals for conference presentations and 1 proposal for a hands-on workshop.

We are interested in (but not limited to) contributions on the following topics:

1. Open access digital resources and services for East Asian studies;
2. Infrastructures, methods, and tools that are applicable to humanities data in all East Asian languages;
3. Research projects conducted by scholars in Europe that employ digital analytical methods;
4. Pedagogy in teaching digital scholarship in European universities and channels for disseminating such knowledge beyond universities;
5. Individual digital exploration for Chinese, Korean, and Japanese studies.

Submission Details

Please submit your presentation/workshop proposal via this survey by April 21, 2024:https://survey.academiccloud.de/index.php/149693?lang=en. The authors of selected proposals will be notified by April 30, 2024.

Note: If you have projects to present but cannot attend the event due to scheduling conflicts, please still answer this survey to help us “chart the European D-SEA.”

Funding

The Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) provides funding for presenters holding a PhD. The fund (€300 per person) will support travel and accommodation for a maximum of 60 people. Please note that the presenters are responsible for arranging their own travel and accommodation.

Call for Attendees

We warmly invite interested individuals to participate in the workshops, the conference, or both. If you would like to attend the conference and/or workshops as an audience member, please register your interest by April 21, 2024 (no registration fee) via this link:https://survey.academiccloud.de/index.php/149693?lang=en. Space is limited!

A list of already confirmed speakers is available on our event page: https://www.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/event/charting-european-d-sea. The program will be further enriched by contributions submitted through this call; the final list of speakers will be announced in May. We encourage students, junior and senior scholars, as well as technical experts to join this event to network with colleagues and learn about the landscape of digital scholarship in East Asian Studies within Europe and beyond.

Please note that attendees are responsible for arranging and covering their own travel and accommodation expenses. Additionally, we kindly ask workshop participants to bring a laptop to make sure that they can fully engage in the sessions.

For inquiries, please contact the organizers:

• Shih-pei CHEN (schen@mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de), Max Planck Institute for the History of Science
• Jing HU (jing.hu@sbb.spk-berlin.de), Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin
• Hou Ieong (Brent) HO (Hou-Ieong.Ho@sbb.spk-berlin.de), Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin

Deadlines

• For proposing presentations/workshops: April 21, 2024
• For registering as an attendee: April 21, 2024