The Digital Humanities Summer Institute gives students and scholars a chance to broaden their knowledge of the Digital Humanities within a feasible timeframe. The DHSI Colloquium was first founded by Diane Jakacki and Cara Leitch to act as a means of supporting graduates who wanted to be a part of such a gathering. The Colloquium has grown in recent years, to the point where it is now seen as an important part of the field’s conference calendar for emerging and established scholars alike, but it remains a non-threatening space in which students, scholars, and practitioners can share their ideas. This issue is testament to that diversity, as well as the strength of the research being presented at the Colloquium. It includes Scott B. Weingart and Nickoal Eichmann-Kalwara, Mary Borgo, William B. Kurtz, and John Barber. “What’s Under the Big Tent?: A Study of ADHO Conference Abstracts,” which portrays the discipline as one which is dominated by specific groups and practices. Using the Victorian Women Writers Project as a case-study, Mary Borgo treats models for the sustainable growth of TEI-based digital resources. William B. Kurtz details his experiences working on a digital initiative, in this instance, Founders Online: Early Access, and engages with the need for such projects to hold broader public appeal. John Barber’s “Radio Nouspace: Sound, Radio, Digital Humanities,” describes the curation of sound within the context of radio, and how such activity connects to creative digital scholarship. Together, these articles represent the purpose of facilitating a community comprised of divergent interests and perspectives, a community which can often be positively dissonant.
Le Digital Humanities Summer Institute (DHSI) offre une chance aux étudiants et érudits d’étoffer leurs connaissances en humanités numériques pendant un délai réalisable. Diane Jakacki et Cara Leitch ont établi le premier colloque du DHSI pour soutenir des diplômés qui voulaient participer à un tel rassemblement. Ces dernières années, le colloque s’est développé jusqu’au point d’être considéré maintenant comme une conférence importante sur le calendrier non seulement pour les érudits émergeants mais aussi pour les érudits établis dans le domaine. Le colloque continue cependant à être un espace non menaçant où les étudiants, les érudits et les professionnels peuvent échanger leurs idées. Ce numéro est un témoignage de cette diversité et de la qualité de la recherche présentée au colloque. Le numéro inclut l’article « What’s Under the Big Tent?: A Study of ADHO Conference Abstracts » par Scott B. Weingart et Nickoal Eichmann-Kalwara, ce qui présente les humanités numériques comme une discipline dominée par des groupes et pratiques spécifiques. En se servant du Victorian Women Writers Project comme étude de cas, Mary Borgo traite des maquettes pour la croissance durable des ressources numériques basées sur la TEI. William B. Kurtz détaille les expériences qu’il a acquises en travaillant sur l’initiative numérique Founders Online: Early Access ainsi que l’importance que de tels projets constituent un facteur attractif pour un plus large public. Dans le texte de John Barber, « Radio Nouspace: Sound, Radio, Digital Humanities », il s’agit du traitement de sons radiophoniques et du lien entre cette activité et l’érudition numérique créative. Tous ces articles correspondent au but de faciliter une communauté composée des intérêts et perspectives divergents qui peut souvent être véritablement dissonante.
Three years ago, Diane Jakacki passed control of the University of Victoria’s DHSI Colloquium
In 2012, the Colloquium’s leadership agreed that there was sufficient demand to broaden the scope of the event beyond graduate submissions. Concurrently, DHSI continued to attract an increasing number of students, resulting in significant growth for the Colloquium and its audience—it is not unusual for participants to find themselves addressing an auditorium housing several hundred of their peers. This growth has continued in recent years, and as the Colloquium remains an addendum to the course-based pedagogical mission of DHSI, a measure of invention has been required to satisfy the increased volume of submission. In addition to more traditional presentations—though the current cap stands at 10 minutes—submissions are now welcome across a number of high-impact formats, such as lightning talks. In 2014, Mary Galvin initiated the Colloquium’s first poster session, which has become increasingly popular amongst participants. At DHSI 2016, we were proud to host a joint session with the concurrent Electronic Literature Organization Conference and Festival, while at DHSI 2017, posters and demonstrations were incorporated from the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing’s annual conference. Developing the Colloquium is about continuing to respond to the needs of the community, finding ways to assist scholars and practitioners at various junctures in their careers to disseminate their research, ideas, and projects. A book of abstracts has been circulated since 2015, while a select number of presentations from DHSI 2014 were transformed into the Colloquium’s first special issue, published in
Despite its growth, the ethos of the Colloquium remains consistent: it is a non-threatening space in which students, scholars, and practitioners can share their ideas. To this end, we operate a peer-review policy wherein all reviewers are instructed to offer collegial feedback—constructive criticism is a requirement, not a recommendation. Unlike some other conferences, we have the luxury of accepting submissions if they meet a minimum threshold in terms of scholarly value. Those submissions that are considered to have fallen short of this standard are finessed through reviewer feedback so that they improve to a point where they are ready to be presented. I say this is a luxury because all we have to do as organisers and reviewers is to improve and accept submissions—accommodating the rising number of presentations is a task that falls to Daniel Sondheim, Assistant Director of the Electronic Textual Cultures Lab at the University of Victoria, and Ray Siemens, Director of DHSI. Dan, Ray, and the University of Victoria are yet to deny any of the Colloquium’s scheduling requirements, and the product of that facilitation is a diverse and inclusive final program.
This issue is testament to that diversity, as well as the strength of the research being presented at the Colloquium. While there are only four papers, they each represent a significant contribution to the field, spanning a range of subjects that includes radio, metadata standards, Victorian women writers, and macro-level explorations of the wider Digital Humanities. One of the peculiarities of our realm’s interdisciplinary nature is that community gatherings draw a seemingly discordant group of individuals—is there value in conferences and publications comprised of historians, linguists, programmers, archivists, artists, and statisticians? Is the DH mix simply too broad to have meaning? I was disappointed to see
In this respect, it is perhaps fitting that this issue includes Scott B. Weingart’s and Nickoal Eichmann-Kalwara’s “What’s Under the Big Tent?: A Study of ADHO Conference Abstracts.” While one can believe in dissonance, diversity, and interdisciplinarity, the reality does not always reflect the mantra. Quantifying submissions to our field’s flagship Digital Humanities conference, Weingart and Eichmann-Kalwara portray the discipline as one which is dominated by specific groups and practices. These findings, they argue, are at odds with anecdotal experiences, and they suggest a number of ways through which we might respond to such failings. Using the
For more on the Colloquium, see the event’s dedicated website,
I am of course referencing last year’s opening ceremony, wherein instructors are tasked with describing their courses. In-keeping with tradition, offerings are outlined through something of a pun-off.
O’Sullivan, James, Mary Galvin, and Diane Jakacki. 2016. DHSI Colloquium 2014 Special Issue, in
I would like to thank a number of editors from
The author has no competing interests to declare.