Digital Humanities at MLA 2015
Vancouver, January 8-10

Here is a list of more or less digitally-oriented sessions at the upcoming Modern Language Association convention. These sessions address digital culture, digital tools, and digital methodology, played out across the domains of research, pedagogy, and scholarly communication. If I’ve overlooked a session, let me know in the comments. You might also be interested in my short reflection on how the 2015 program stacks up against previous MLA programs.

Thursday, January 8

3. Critical DH (Digital Humanities) Interventions in Scholarly Communications and Publishing

Thursday, 8 January, 8:30–11:30 a.m., 220, VCC West

Presiding: Raymond G. Siemens, Univ. of Victoria

Speakers: Juan Pablo Alperin, Simon Fraser Univ.; Alyssa Arbuckle, Univ. of Victoria; Nina Belojevic, Univ. of Victoria; Matthew Hiebert, Univ. of Victoria; Shaun MacPherson, Univ. of Victoria; Alec Smecher, Simon Fraser Univ.

For full program and ancillary materials, visit dhsi.org.

This workshop considers innovative ways DH engages scholarly communication and publishing. Contents (theoretical and hands-on): social knowledge construction and critical making; digital cooperatives and scholarly editions; user interface and experience; peer-review personas; Scalar; Git and GitHub; Open Monograph Press; social academic community development. Preregistration required.

14. Postcolonial Digital Humanities: Praxis

Thursday, 8 January, 12:00 noon–1:15 p.m., 111, VCC West

Presiding: Adeline Koh, Richard Stockton Coll. of New Jersey

Speakers: Alexander Gil, Columbia Univ.; Angel Nieves, Hamilton Coll.; Porter Olsen, Univ. of Maryland, College Park; Suey Park, Chicago, IL; Roopika Risam, Salem State Univ.; Siobhan Senier, Univ. of New Hampshire, Durham

For abstracts, visit www.dhpoco.org.

This roundtable explores the role of praxis in the academy through the fields of postcolonial studies and the digital humanities. Participants discuss how they actively integrate the methodologies of postcolonial analysis into the digital humanities, revealing the implicit presence of race, ethnicity, and systems of exclusion.

42. Situating Calgary: Contemporary Calgary Place and Poetics

Thursday, 8 January, 1:45–3:00 p.m., 111, VCC West

  1. “What’s a Chapbook? How the ‘Calgary Model’ Writes Successful Practice and Community,” Chris Ewart, Simon Fraser Univ.
  2. “Urban Sprawl: The Shifting Membership of Calgary’s Experimental Writing Community,” Helen Hajnoczky, McGill Univ.
  3. “The Calgary Poetics Archive: Toward a Digital Mapping and Archiving of Calgary’s Small Press Circulations between 1990 and 2010,” Janey Dodd, Univ. of British Columbia, Vancouver; Ryan Fitzpatrick, Simon Fraser Univ.

54. Deep Time of the Nineteenth Century: A Literary Archaeology of Media and Objects

Thursday, 8 January, 1:45–3:00 p.m., 215, VCC West

Presiding: Crystal Lake, Wright State Univ.

Speakers: Blake Bronson-Bartlett, Technische Universität Dortmund; Craig Carey, Univ. of Southern Mississippi; Crystal Lake; Richard Menke, Univ. of Georgia; Roger Whitson, Washington State Univ., Pullman

Session Description:

Our roundtable draws from the different periods and nationalities of the nineteenth century to create a transatlantic approach to literary history informed by the materialist concerns of “media archaeology.”

58. Teaching Transatlanticism with New Technologies

Thursday, 8 January, 1:45–3:00 p.m., 212, VCC West

Presiding: Sarah Ruffing Robbins, Texas Christian Univ.

  1. “Digital Transatlanticism: An Experience of and Reflections on Undergraduate Research in the Humanities,” Erik Simpson, Grinnell Coll.
  2. “Transatlantic Mediations: Teaching Victorian Poetry in the New Print Media,” Alison Chapman, Univ. of Victoria
  3. “Twenty-First-Century Digital Publics and Nineteenth-Century Transatlantic Public Spheres,” Tyler Branson, Texas Christian Univ.

For more information, write to sarahrobbins@gmail.com or visit https://teachingtransatlanticism.tcu.edu/.

69. Into the Digital Future: Amazon, Apple, and Google Make Book History

Thursday, 8 January, 1:45–3:00 p.m., 121, VCC West

Presiding: Greg Barnhisel, Duquesne Univ.

  1. “The Book Trade from the Perspective of Its Businesses: Recent Developments,” Daniel Raff, Univ. of Pennsylvania
  2. “Amazon et Alia: Self-Publishing and the New Intermediaries,” Timothy Laquintano, Lafayette Coll.
  3. “Cocreating Fictional Worlds Online: Hugh Howey and Kindle Publishing,” Carrie Sickmann Han, Indiana Univ., Bloomington

Responding: Greg Barnhisel

For abstracts, visit sharp.web.

86. Artifactual Interpretation: Practices of the Material Turn

Thursday, 8 January, 3:30–4:45 p.m., 202, VCC West

Presiding: Grant Wythoff, Columbia Univ.

  1. “Toward a Media Archaeology of the Phonautogram and Its Playback,” Richard Menke, Univ. of Georgia
  2. “Data Visualization and the Gibson Anthologies,” Stefania Forlini, Univ. of Calgary; Uta Hinrichs, Univ. of Saint Andrews
  3. “Arguing through Archival Objects: A Z-Axis Method for 3-D-Printed Interpretation,” Alexander Christie, Univ. of Victoria

For abstracts, visit http://wythoff.net/artifactual_interpretation/.

114. The Libidinal Economy of Data

Thursday, 8 January, 5:15–6:30 p.m., 204, VCC West

Presiding: Laura G. Gutierrez, Univ. of Texas, Austin

  1. “Longing for the Money Shot,” Jane Juffer, Cornell Univ.
  2. “Mutations of Libidinal Desire in Spike Jonze’s Her,” Octavio Gonzalez, Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick
  3. “Sex and the Singularity: On the Reproduction of Software Objects,” Andrew Pilsch, Middlebury Coll.

125. Visionary Pedagogies for the Twenty-First Century: Teaching the Humanities with Digital Technology

Thursday, 8 January, 5:15–6:30 p.m., 210, VCC West

Presiding: Petra Dierkes-Thrun, Stanford Univ.; Gabriele Dillmann, Denison Univ.

  1. “Fostering Global and Digital Learning with Google+ Hangouts as a Communication and Knowledge-Sharing Tool,” Gabriele Dillmann
  2. “How to Do Things with Books and Screens: Literature and Digital Pedagogy,” Petra Dierkes-Thrun
  3. “Assignment Riffing: What Happens in DS106 Does Not Stay in DS106,” Alan Levine, Univ. of Mary Washington
  4. “Assignments, Assessments, and Makerspace Methods in the Literary Digital Humanities Writing Course,” Amanda Starling Gould, Duke Univ.

154. Retrofuturism and Critical Theory

Thursday, 8 January, 7:00–8:15 p.m., 205, VCC West

Presiding: Leeann Hunter, Washington State Univ., Pullman

  1. “Steampunk Recursions and Computational Retrofutures in Bioshock Infinite,” Roger Whitson, Washington State Univ., Pullman
  2. “Practice-Based Research in the Media Archaeology Lab: Past Solutions for Present Problems,” Lori A. Emerson, Univ. of Colorado, Boulder
  3. “Hands On: Restoring a Scene of Early Word Processing through Tape and Type,” Matthew Kirschenbaum, Univ. of Maryland, College Park

For abstracts, visit www.rogerwhitson.net after 11 Dec.

159. Digital Rhetorics in Flux

Thursday, 8 January, 7:00–8:15 p.m., 207, VCC West

Presiding: Casie Cobos, Illinois State Univ.

  1. “Building a Culture for the Digital: Infrastructures Both Human and Not,” Jeffrey Grabill, Michigan State Univ.
  2. “Sustaining Digital Rhetoric, Place, and Funding,” Dean Rehberger, Michigan State Univ.
  3. “What the Machine Speaks: Alterity in Digital Rhetorics,” Elizabeth Mathews Losh, Univ. of California, San Diego
  4. “Critical Making: The Risks and Rewards of Scholarly Digital Production,” Susan H. Delagrange, Ohio State Univ., Mansfield

162. Queer OS: Queerness as Operating System

Thursday, 8 January, 7:00–8:15 p.m., 215, VCC West

Presiding: Jacob Gaboury, New York Univ.

  1. “The Queer Art of Selfies,” Fiona Barnett, Duke Univ.
  2. “On Queerness and Informatic Opacities,” Zach Blas, Duke Univ.
  3. “‘I Imagined Many Moons in the Sky Lighting the Way to Freedom’: Janelle Monae’s Femme Disturbance,” Micha Cárdenas, Univ. of Southern California
  4. “Compiling a Queer Computation,” Jacob Gaboury

Responding: Kara Keeling, Univ. of Southern California

176. What Does It Mean to Publish? New Forms of Scholarly Communication

Thursday, 8 January, 7:00–8:15 p.m., 17, VCC East

Presiding: Dawn Childress, Penn State Univ. Libraries

  1. “Virtual Verse in the Library: Capturing Online-Only Poetry for Scholarship and Preservation,” Harriett Green, Univ. of Illinois, Urbana
  2. “Tales from a Silver Medalist: Publishing an Interactive, Collaborative Article in JITP (Journal of Interactive Technology and Pedagogy),” Amanda Licastro, Graduate Center, City Univ. of New York
  3. “Capturing New Modes of Scholarship in the MLA International Bibliography,” Barbara Chen, MLA

Friday, January 9

179. Reorganizing the MLA: Making More Room for Rhetoric, Composition, and Writing Studies

Friday, 9 January, 8:30–9:45 a.m., 204, VCC West

Presiding: Michael F. Bernard-Donals, Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison

  1. “The MLA Publications Committee, the Publications Program, and the Importance of Composition and Rhetoric,” Deborah H. Holdstein, Columbia Coll., IL
  2. “The MLA’s New Forum Structure: A First Round of Revisions for Writing Studies,” Marianne Hirsch, Columbia Univ.
  3. “Digital Studies at the MLA: The Asymptotic Relation of Computers and Writing and the Digital Humanities,” Cheryl E. Ball, West Virginia Univ., Morgantown
  4. ” What Writing Studies Does for the MLA, What the MLA Does for Writing Studies,” Rosemary G. Feal, MLA

198. Big Tent, Small Campus: Digital Humanities, Digital Liberal Arts, and Undergraduate Education

Friday, 9 January, 8:30–9:45 a.m., 113, VCC West

  1. “Experimental Curricula: Prototyping the Digital Liberal Arts,” Aaron Mauro, Penn State Univ., Erie-Behrend
  2. “Digital Humanities Theory and Practice: ‘Crossing Boundaries’ at Saint Lawrence University,” Matthew Lavin, Saint Lawrence Univ.
  3. “Decentered Digital Liberal Arts: Overcoming (Human) Resource Scarcity in Collaborative Networks,” Jacob Heil, Five Colls. of Ohio

194. Storytelling in the Past and Present: Global Perspectives on Folklore and Literature

Friday, 9 January, 8:30–9:45 a.m., 208, VCC West

Presiding: Sharon Lynette Jones, Wright State Univ.

  1. “An Enduring Legacy: India’s Rich Heritage of Folklore,” Bansari Mitra, Clark Atlanta Univ.
  2. “Reciprocal Storytelling as Principle and Process in the Panƈatantra by Which the Other’s Right to Existence Is Sustained and Legitimized,” Rosmarie T. Morewedge, Binghamton Univ., State Univ. of New York
  3. “A Pirate in a Tree: Using Network Analysis to Find Treasure,” John Laudun, Univ. of Louisiana, Lafayette
  4. “Visualizing Fairy Tales on Television: Global Perspectives through Network Analysis,” Jill T. Rudy, Brigham Young Univ., UT

204. Text Tools in the (Digital) Humanities

Friday, 9 January, 8:30–9:45 a.m., 202, VCC West

Presiding: Steven J. Syrek, Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick

  1. “Multiformat E-books in the Classroom: From Plain Text Forward,” Vaughn Stewart, Univ. of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
  2. “The Promise of the Plain: Plain Text and Plain Tools in the Digital Humanities,” David L. Hoover, New York Univ.
  3. “Bukvik: A Literary Scholars’ Environment for Running Visualized, Social-Augmented, Collaborative Research,” Eugenia Kelbert, Yale Univ.; Sasha Mile Rudan, Oslo Univ.

For abstracts, visit text.commons.mla.org.

215. Maintaining Academic Integrity in the Twenty-First Century in Online and Face-to-Face Encounters

Friday, 9 January, 8:30–9:45 a.m., 215, VCC West

Presiding: William Overton, American Public Univ.

  1. “Academic Integrity in an Online University: Problems and Solutions,” Kimberly Jacobs, American Public Univ.
  2. “Academic Integrity in a State University (Online and Face-to-Face): Problems and Solutions,” Jennifer Black, Boise State Univ.
  3. “Tools to Ensure Academic Integrity and Their Impacts on Students’ Rights,” Susan Lowman-Thomas, American Public Univ.

233. The Global South Imaginary: A Critical Reflection

Friday, 9 January, 10:15–11:30 a.m., 14, VCC East

Presiding: Joshua K. Lund, Univ. of Pittsburgh

  1. “Sounding the Limits of the ‘South’: Nonlocational Geographies at the Limit of a Concept,” Magalí Armillas-Tiseyra, Univ. of Mississippi
  2. “Haiti, Otherwise: Global South Literary Strategies in Jacques Stephan Alexis and Edwidge Danticat,” Duncan McEachern Yoon, Univ. of California, Los Angeles
  3. “Cyberactivism and the Global South: Networks of Inclusion and Exclusion in Digital Resistance Movements,” Anne Garland Mahler, Univ. of Arizona

For abstracts, write to agmahler@email.arizona.edu.

242. The Future of the Print Record

Friday, 9 January, 10:15–11:30 a.m., 1, VCC East

Presiding: Kathleen Fitzpatrick, MLA

Speakers: James Grossman, American Historical Assn.; Chuck Henry, Council on Library and Information Resources; Geneva Henry, George Washington Univ.; Deanna Marcum, Ithaka S+R; Andrew M. Stauffer, Univ. of Virginia

For background materials, visit printrecord.commons.mla.org after 1 Dec.

New technologies, changing approaches to research, and growing strains on library space and budgets are dramatically affecting prospects for future access to the print record of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This session focuses on the development of a framework for collaborative, productive decision making among faculty members and librarians in shaping the future of library collections.

248. Digital Trends in Native Literature and Media

Friday, 9 January, 10:15–11:30 a.m., 217, VCC West

Presiding: Joanna Hearne, Univ. of Missouri, Columbia

  1. “Indigenous Feminist Futures on Film,” Dory Nason, Univ. of British Columbia, Vancouver; Maija S. Tailfeathers, independent filmmaker
  2. “Climate Change, Indigenous Resources,” Penelope M. Kelsey, Univ. of Colorado, Boulder
  3. “Representing ‘Reserve Reality’: Protocols of Guesthood in Kevin Burton’s God’s Lake Narrows,” David Gaertner, Univ. of British Columbia, Vancouver
  4. “Digital Humanities in the Native American Literatures Classroom: Challenges and Opportunities,” Stephanie J. Fitzgerald, Univ. of Kansas

For abstracts, images, and movie trailer, visit asail.org.

259. Bibliography for the Twenty-First Century

Friday, 9 January, 12:00 noon–1:15 p.m., 219, VCC West

Presiding: Dawn Childress, Penn State Univ. Libraries; Matt Cohen, Univ. of Texas, Austin

  1. “An English Short Title Catalogue for the Twenty-First Century,” Benjamin F. Pauley, Eastern Connecticut State Univ.; Carl Stahmer, Univ. of California, Santa Barbara
  2. “Bibliographic Migration and Book Ecology: The SFU Lake District Rare Book Collection in the Twenty-First Century,” Margaret Linley, Simon Fraser Univ.
  3. “The Digital Antiquarian: Remediating Archival Impulses,” Thomas Augst, New York Univ.; Molly Hardy, American Antiquarian Soc.

For abstracts and links, visit mlalibraries.commons.mla.org/2015-bibliography-for-the-21st-century.

292. Digital Deformance and Scholarly Forms

Friday, 9 January, 12:00 noon–1:15 p.m., 212, VCC West

Presiding: Lisa Marie Rhody, George Mason Univ.

  1. “(Re)Shaping Scholarship, (Re)Claiming Folklore: Reassessing Hurston’s Oeuvre Using TEI (Text Encoding Initiative),” Christina Boyles, Baylor Univ.
  2. “Have Qrafter Ready: What Literature Students Can Learn from Digital Deformation,” Chris Gabbard, Univ. of North Florida
  3. “Songs That Start with I,” Danielle Gustafson-Sundell, Minnesota State Univ.
  4. “The Devil in the Recording: Deformative Listening and Poetry,” Brandon Walsh, Univ. of Virginia

For blog posts, visit www.ach.org after 1 Dec.

298. What Is the Role of the Critical Edition in the Digital Age?

Friday, 9 January, 1:45–3:00 p.m., 215, VCC West

Presiding: John Young, Marshall Univ.

Speakers: Benjamin Albritton, Stanford Univ.; William Leake Andrews, Univ. of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; Neil Fraistat, Univ. of Maryland, College Park; Andrew Scott Galloway, Cornell Univ.; Kenneth M. Price, Univ. of Nebraska, Lincoln

Editing protocols date from the analog age. Digital editions continue to follow analog protocols. Textual scholars—and textual scholarship—can profit from discussion of digital technology’s contribution to editing. Panelists, textual scholars with experience in both analog and digital editing technologies, discuss and suggest further exploration.

303. The Irish Work of Art in the Digital Age

Friday, 9 January, 1:45–3:00 p.m., 202, VCC West

  1. “Remediating the Nineteenth-Century Irish Novel,” Shane Murtagh, National Univ. of Ireland, Maynooth
  2. “Irish Literature as Born-Digital,” James O’Sullivan, University Coll. Cork
  3. “Keywords and Tradition in the Digital Era,” John Dillon, Univ. of Notre Dame
  4. “Reviewing the Reviews,” Sonia Howell, Univ. of Notre Dame

307. Careers for Humanists: A Spectrum of Possibilities

Friday, 9 January, 1:45–3:00 p.m., 1, VCC East

Presiding: Kathleen Woodward, Univ. of Washington, Seattle

Speakers: Melissa A. Dalgleish, York Univ., Keele; Gabrielle Dean, Johns Hopkins Univ., MD; Andy Fitzgerald, Frog Design; Anne-Marie Harvey, Univ. of California, Berkeley; Jason Rhody, National Endowment for the Humanities

Participants in this roundtable discussion illustrate several of the career paths that humanists can and do pursue upon completion of their degrees. Panelists include university employees in a variety of nonfaculty positions, a program officer at the National Endowment for the Humanities, and a recent PhD recipient working in a for-profit design and development shop for digital media.

315. Humanistic Inquiry with Large Corpora of Digitized Text and Metadata: Toward New Epistemologies?

Friday, 9 January, 1:45–3:00 p.m., 224, VCC West

Presiding: Sayan Bhattacharyya, Univ. of Illinois, Urbana; Jeremy York, HathiTrust Digital Library

For tutorials, slides, and abstracts, visit www-personal.umich.edu/~bhattach/mla2015.

The availability of large corpora of digitized text from research libraries will inform humanistic inquiry in novel ways. Humanities scholars will be in dialogue with innovative tools that mine digital text, sparking a conversation about epistemology in textual inquiry.

327. The Library as Method

Friday, 9 January, 1:45–3:00 p.m., 121, VCC West

Presiding: Andrew M. Stauffer, Univ. of Virginia

  1. “Researching ‘Search’: The Historical Impact of Information Science,” David Haeselin, Carnegie Mellon Univ.
  2. “Research and the Robot: What Do Disappearing Library Stacks Mean for Literary Scholarship?” Amanda Avery, Marywood Univ.
  3. “The Art of Accident,” Jennifer Travis, Saint John’s Univ., NY

344. Geocritical Explorations inside the Text

Friday, 9 January, 3:30–4:45 p.m., 2, VCC East

Presiding: Moacir P. de Sá Pereira, Vilnius Gediminas Technical Univ.

  1. “‘Could Be’: Langston Hughes as Situationist Cartographer,” Alba Newmann Holmes, Willamette Univ.
  2. “Paterson and Paterson: The Literary Cartography of City and Text as Revealed through GIS (Geographic Information System),” Michael A. Smith, Duquesne Univ.
  3. “Expatriate Hunger: GIS-Generated Literary Analysis of Food, Drink, and Sex ‘inside’ Expatriate Literature,” Amy D. Wells, Université de Caen Basse-Normandie Site Cherbourg

Responding: Robert Tally, Texas State Univ.

For abstracts, visit http://www.moacir.com/talks/mla-15-geocritical-explorations-inside-the-text after 1 Nov.

357. A New Kind of Work: Articulating and Evaluating Excellence in Digital Scholarship

Friday, 9 January, 3:30–4:45 p.m., 1, VCC East

Presiding: Victoria E. Szabo, Duke Univ.

Speakers: Cheryl E. Ball, West Virginia Univ., Morgantown; David F. Bell, Duke Univ.; Alison Booth, Univ. of Virginia; Raymond G. Siemens, Univ. of Victoria; Julie Sykes, Univ. of Oregon

For background material, visit evaluatingdigitalscholarship.commons.mla.org/ after 1 Dec.

With the proliferation of scholarly practices broadly defined as “digital” comes the challenge of evaluating such work within existing disciplinary standards and structures. How are faculty members, chairs, and administrators negotiating this challenge? What constitutes excellence for different types of projects? How do we know it, define it, refine it, and promote it in our institutions?

394. Empirical Data and Native Literatures in the Digital Age

Friday, 9 January, 5:15–6:30 p.m., 117, VCC West

Presiding: Keith Feldman, Univ. of California, Berkeley

  1. “Archaeological Evidence and the Truth Telling of Native American Oral Traditions,” Annette Kolodny, Univ. of Arizona
  2. “The Digital Humanities’ Manifest Erasures of Native America,” Susan Berry Brill de Ramírez, Bradley Univ.
  3. “The Politics of Native Language Revitalization: Who’s Learning Lakota Today and Why,” Tasha Hauff, Univ. of California, Berkeley

398. The MLA and Its Data: Remix, Reuse, and Research

Friday, 9 January, 5:15–6:30 p.m., 121, VCC West

Presiding: Marguerite Helen Helmers, Univ. of Wisconsin, Oshkosh

Speakers: Brian Croxall, Emory Univ.; Jonathan Goodwin, Univ. of Louisiana, Lafayette; David Laurence, MLA; Ernesto Priego, City Univ. London; Lisa Marie Rhody, George Mason Univ.; Christopher Zarate, MLA

For abstracts, visit infotech.commons.mla.org/ after 15 Dec.

As an organization, the MLA produces many kinds of data: the bibliography, the Job Information List, and its publications. We scholars produce data “about” the MLA as well, through social media connected to the annual convention. This panel presents work on what we can learn about the professions of language and literature when we analyze the data collectively produced by the MLA and its members.

403. Literature and Digital Games

Friday, 9 January, 5:15–6:30 p.m., 210, VCC West

Presiding: Patrick Jagoda, Univ. of Chicago; Lisa Siraganian, Southern Methodist Univ.

  1. “Endless Wandering in Opera and Video Games,” Melissa Kagen, Stanford Univ.
  2. “Hands-On Textuality: Designing Literature for Indie Game Development,” Alexander Christie, Univ. of Victoria
  3. “Developmental Narratives in the Bildungsroman and RPGs (Role-Playing Games),” Jonathan Rey Lee, Univ. of California, Riverside

Electronic Literature Readings and Performances

Join us on Friday, January 9, 2015 at the historic Rickshaw Theatre in downtown Vancouver B.C. for an evening of Readings and Performances by members of the Electronic Literature Organization. The event starts at 8:00 p.m. and is free and open to the public.

Saturday, January 10

420. Hacking the Renaissance

Saturday, 10 January, 8:30–9:45 a.m., 114, VCC West

Presiding: Graham Hammill, Univ. at Buffalo, State Univ. of New York

  1. “Augmented Criticism and Early Modern Rhetoric,” Michael Ullyot, Univ. of Calgary
  2. “Algorithmic Approaches to Intertextuality in Early Modern Literature,” Douglas Duhaime, Univ. of Notre Dame
  3. “Thinking the Relation,” Christopher Warren, Carnegie Mellon Univ.
  4. “Curating Digital Efforts in the Library,” Robin Davis, John Jay Coll. of Criminal Justice, City Univ. of New York

437. Pedagogy and Digital Editions

Saturday, 10 January, 8:30–9:45 a.m., 215, VCC West

Presiding: Jesús Rodríguez-Velasco, Columbia Univ.

Speakers: Julia Bninski, Loyola Univ., Chicago; Harold Henry Hellwig, Idaho State Univ.; Kathleen Ogden, Univ. of Toronto; Leah Reade Rosenberg, Univ. of Florida; Brandon Walsh, Univ. of Virginia

Participants consider the issues related to the use and development of digital editions and the availability of digital versions of primary sources in the classroom.

448. Disrupting the Digital Humanities

Saturday, 10 January, 8:30–9:45 a.m., 16, VCC East

Presiding: Sean Michael Morris, Hybrid Pedagogy

Speakers: Fiona Barnett, Duke Univ.; Kathi Inman Berens, Univ. of Southern California; Dorothy Kim, Vassar Coll.; Adeline Koh, Richard Stockton Coll. of New Jersey; Elika Ortega Guzman, Univ. of Western Ontario; Roopika Risam, Salem State Univ.; Jesse Stommel, Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison

For papers, visit www.disruptingdh.com after 18 Nov.

All too often, defining a discipline becomes more an exercise of exclusion than inclusion. This roundtable rethinks how we map disciplinary terrain by directly confronting the gatekeeping impulse of so many academic disciplines. Participants investigate the edges and open the digital humanities more fully to its fringes and outliers.

458. Gender and the Archives

Saturday, 10 January, 10:15–11:30 a.m., 3, VCC East

Presiding: Jacqueline D. Wernimont, Scripps Coll.

Speakers: Jessica J. Beard, Univ. of California, Santa Cruz; Laura Goldblatt, Univ. of Virginia; Anne Kingsley, Northeastern Univ.; Judith Scholes, Univ. of British Columbia, Vancouver; Nicole Sierra, Univ. of Oxford, Jesus Coll.

Recognizing that the archive is always a problematic foundation of historical record, this roundtable examines how gender matters there—that is, how gender constructs and gendered bodies or materials impact the collection, preservation, or existence of archives. Discussion covers digital archives, unarchived bodies, misidentifications, curation, and counterarchives.

471. Weird Media

Saturday, 10 January, 10:15–11:30 a.m., 202, VCC West

Presiding: Jason Camlot, Concordia Univ., QC

  1. “Vocal Cords as Extension of the Tape Recorder, Sound Poetry as a Media Study,” Lori A. Emerson, Univ. of Colorado, Boulder
  2. “Reading, Seeing, and Sensing: The Internet of Things Makes Literature,” Elizabeth Mathews Losh, Univ. of California, San Diego
  3. “Fugitive Sound: The Phonotext and Critical Practice,” Michael Nardone, Concordia Univ., QC

For abstracts, visit jasoncamlot.com.

476. The Conceptual Turn

Saturday, 10 January, 10:15–11:30 a.m., 210, VCC West

Presiding: Peter L. de Bolla, Univ. of Cambridge, King’s Coll.

  1. “Introducing the Concept Lab,” John Regan, Univ. of Cambridge, Clare Hall
  2. “Networking, Orbital Drag, Blockage: Mapping Conceptual Movement across the Eighteenth Century,” Ewan Jones, Univ. of Cambridge, Trinity Hall
  3. “Statistical Analysis at the Birth of Close Reading,” Yohei Igarashi, Univ. of Connecticut, Storrs

For papers and abstracts, visit www.english.cam.ac.uk/people/Jones/Ewan/.

477. Demystifying Multimodality: WOVEN (Written, Oral, Visual, Electronic, Nonverbal) Approaches to Writing Intensive Courses at Georgia Tech

Saturday, 10 January, 10:15–11:30 a.m., 9, VCC East

Presiding: Lisa Dusenberry, Georgia Inst. of Tech.

  1. “Projects, Artifacts, and WOVEN: The Historical Context of Multimodal Works,” Joy Robinson, Georgia Inst. of Tech.
  2. “Rethinking the Modes and Methods of Undergraduate Humanities Research,” Liz Hutter, Georgia Inst. of Tech.
  3. “Provoking Choice: Defamiliarizing Presentations with Multimodal Demonstrations,” Lisa Dusenberry
  4. “Milton and Multimodality: Encouraging Literary Inquiry into Paradise Lost,” Patricia Taylor, Georgia Inst. of Tech.

490. Making Writing in Third Spaces

Saturday, 10 January, 10:15–11:30 a.m., 112, VCC West

Presiding: Bonnie Lenore Kyburz, Lewis Univ.

  1. “Fairey’s ‘Obama’: Data Visualization for Transformative Rhetorical Studies,” Laurie Gries, Univ. of Florida
  2. “Making Documentary as Multimodal Research Method,” Brian Harmon, Univ. of South Carolina, Columbia; Byron Hawk, Univ. of South Carolina, Columbia
  3. “Transduction Literacies,” Jentery Sayers, Univ. of Victoria

496. Text-nology Idea Jam: The Book of the Future

Saturday, 10 January, 12:00 noon–1:15 p.m., 207, VCC West

Presiding: Tamara O’Callaghan, Northern Kentucky Univ.

Angela Bennett Segler, New York Univ.; Andrea R. Harbin, State Univ. of New York, Cortland; Jacob Heil, Five Colls. of Ohio; Maciej Maryl, Polish Acad. of Sciences; Brian Rosenblum, Univ. of Kansas Libraries

For idea jam explanation and question summaries, visit www.nku.edu/~ocallaghant/IdeaJamsMLA2015.htm.

This workshop is an “idea jam”—an event run by participants rather than by facilitators—on the impact of technology on the text and reading practices. Each facilitator proposes an open-ended question related to the idea jam topic. Participants then work with the facilitator whose question most intrigues them to brainstorm ideas, concerns, etc.

513. Varieties of Variorum Editing

Saturday, 10 January, 12:00 noon–1:15 p.m., 114, VCC West

Presiding: Paul Werstine, Univ. of Western Ontario

  1. “Behind the Variorum of The Origin of Species,” Barbara Bordalejo, Univ. of Saskatchewan
  2. “Digital Editions 2.0: Lessons Learned from Donne and Cervantes,” Laura C. Mandell, Texas A&M Univ., College Station
  3. “Opening Up the Variorum Edition in the Digital Age,” Peter Robinson, Univ. of Saskatchewan

531. Getting Funded in the Humanities: An NEH Workshop

Saturday, 10 January, 1:30–3:30 p.m., 1, VCC East

Presiding: Jason Rhody, National Endowment for the Humanities

This workshop highlights recent awards and outlines current funding opportunities. In addition to emphasizing grant programs that support individual and collaborative research and education, the workshop includes information on the NEH’s Office of Digital Humanities. A question-and-answer period will follow.

538. Literary Questions, Digital Evidence

Saturday, 10 January, 1:45–3:00 p.m., 111, VCC West

Presiding: Adena Spingarn, Stanford Univ.

Speakers: Jonathan Armoza, McGill Univ.; John Bryant, Hofstra Univ.; Maura D’Amore, Saint Michael’s Coll.; Jonathan Schroeder, Univ. of Chicago

Beginning with presentations of examples from nineteenth-century American literary studies, participants discuss how digital tools have answered and can continue to answer foregrounded literary and literary historical questions. This approach is presented in contrast to those that prioritize the collection and presentation of new kinds of textual information.

597. Comparative Literature, Turning, Returning: Pedagogical and Digital Trajectories

Saturday, 10 January, 3:30–4:45 p.m., 120, VCC West

Presiding: Adam E. Miyashiro, Richard Stockton Coll. of New Jersey

  1. “Undergraduate Comparative Literature: A New Study,” Corinne Laura Scheiner, Colorado Coll.
  2. “Digital Humanities Experimentation and Comparative Literature,” Markus Reisenleitner, York Univ., Keele
  3. “World Literature in the Global University Network,” Waïl S. Hassan, New York Univ. Abu Dhabi
  4. “Sites of Memory: Digital and Curricular Engagements with the Past,” Caroline D. Eckhardt, Penn State Univ., University Park

604. Genealogies of the Digital Humanities (DH)

Saturday, 10 January, 3:30–4:45 p.m., 121, VCC West

Presiding: Brad Pasanek, Univ. of Virginia

  1. “What Has DH Reinscribed?” Daniel Anderson, Univ. of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
  2. “Digital Preservation 1.0: The Curious Case of the London Stage Information Bank (1970–78),” Mattie Burkert, Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison
  3. “DH and the MLA Job Information List,” Jim Ridolfo, Univ. of Kentucky
  4. “Digital Pedagogy: A Genealogy,” Jesse Stommel, Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison

606. Textual Assemblage: Readers, Remixing, and the Reconstruction of Books

Saturday, 10 January, 5:15–6:30 p.m., 217, VCC West

Presiding: Sigrid Anderson Cordell, Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor

  1. “Remixing the Poets: Nineteenth-Century American Commonplace Books as Textual Assemblage,” Amanda L. Watson, New York Univ.
  2. “The Genres and Uses of Newspaper Literature,” Ryan Cordell, Northeastern Univ.
  3. “‘Advance Pickets’ in the Printing Office: Claiming Confederate Space in Soldier Newspapers,” James Berkey, Duke Univ.
  4. “I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere: Digital Scrapbooks and the Curation of Female Desire,” Balaka Basu, Univ. of North Carolina, Charlotte

622. Renaissance New Media

Saturday, 10 January, 5:15–6:30 p.m., 9, VCC East

Presiding: Katie Chenoweth, Princeton Univ.

  1. “Probably Never Constructed: Connecting the Early Modern Emergence of Architecture to Digital Theaters and Shakespearean Tragedy,” Michael Alijewicz, Vanderbilt Univ.
  2. “Hermeneutical Training in the Times of Philology and e-Philology: From ‘Mighty Guzzlers’ to Critical Readers,” Jan Miernowski, Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison
  3. “Its Bits: Information Theory and the Real Character,” James D. Fleming, Simon Fraser Univ.

639. Strategies for Advocacy, Lobbying, and Activism in the Humanities

Saturday, 10 January, 5:15–6:30 p.m., 117, VCC West

Presiding: Giovanna Montenegro, Univ. of California, Davis

Speakers: Silvia Aguinaga Echeverría, Univ. of California, Davis; Sasha Colby, Simon Fraser Univ.; Bruce Krajewski, Univ. of Texas, Arlington; Teresa Mangum, Univ. of Iowa; Juan Miranda, Univ. of California, Davis; Fei Shi, Quest Univ.; Julie Ziegler, Humanities Washington

For abstracts and resources, visit humanitiesadvocacy.commons.mla.org/.

The roundtable includes United States, Canadian, and international perspectives from state humanities council directors, scholars, and students who seek to foster public engagement with the humanities in the academy and scholars who use a variety of methods, including digital humanities, public art and performance, and rhetoric and radio, to engage wider communities.

Sunday, January 11

654. Virtual Women: Webcomics

Sunday, 11 January, 8:30–9:45 a.m., 3, VCC East

Presiding: Leah Misemer, Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison

  1. “‘Straw Feminists’: Webcomics, Parody, and Intertextuality,” Sarah Sillin, Univ. of Maryland, College Park
  2. “Ménage à 3: Gender and Sexual Diversity through Women’s Perspectives,” Nicole Slipp, Queen’s Univ.
  3. “One Click Wonder: How Female Comics Creators Leapt from Private to Public in a Single Bound,” Aimee Valentine, Western Michigan Univ.

Responding: Hillary L. Chute, Univ. of Chicago

655. “Screens”: E-reading, Intersemiosis, and the Agency of Screens

Sunday, 11 January, 8:30–9:45 a.m., 215, VCC West

Presiding: José H. Sanjinés, Coastal Carolina Univ.

  1. “Books on Small Screens: Rhetorical Strategies of the E-reader Screen,” Ellen McCracken, Univ. of California, Santa Barbara
  2. “Screens: Intersemiosis and the Interface,” José H. Sanjinés
  3. “Expanded Cinema and the Screen as Subject,” Christopher Ottinger, Chicago Artists Coalition

665. Approaching The Peripheral: First Responses to William Gibson’s New Novel

Sunday, 11 January, 8:30–9:45 a.m., 212, VCC West

Presiding: Brian Croxall, Emory Univ.

Speakers: Paul Benzon, Temple Univ., Philadelphia; Amy J. Elias, Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville; Kathleen Fitzpatrick, MLA; Matthew Kirschenbaum, Univ. of Maryland, College Park; Lee Konstantinou, Univ. of Maryland, College Park; Andrew Pilsch, Arizona State Univ. Polytechnic; Zach Whalen, Univ. of Mary Washington

Fall 2014 saw the publication of The Peripheral, a novel by William Gibson. Turning his attention again to tomorrow, the author imagines the future of games, technology, and warfare and their effects on bodies, economies, and families. Scholars of contemporary literature present a range of approaches and share their early reactions, impressions, and suggestions for interpreting this new text.

661. Antebellum Print Culture and the Digital Archive

Sunday, 11 January, 8:30–9:45 a.m., 224, VCC West

Presiding: Ryan Cordell, Northeastern Univ.

Speakers: Amy Earhart, Texas A&M Univ., College Station; Leon Jackson, Univ. of South Carolina, Columbia; J. Gerald Kennedy, Louisiana State Univ., Baton Rouge; Jerome J. McGann, Univ. of Virginia

Responding: Meredith L. McGill, Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick

For abstracts, write to jgkenn@lsu.edu after 1 Dec.

The widespread digitizing of virtually all nineteenth-century books, periodicals, and newspapers has created new online access to previously obscure materials. This panel assesses how digital technologies are facilitating new ways of doing research as well as promoting broader conceptions of “literature,” the publishing world, and the circulation (and reprinting) of texts.

671. Making as Method

Sunday, 11 January, 8:30–9:45 a.m., 210, VCC West

Presiding: Lauren Klein, Georgia Inst. of Tech.

  1. “Warped Modernisms: Making the City in the Work,” Jentery Sayers, Univ. of Victoria
  2. “Printing Fictions: Notes toward a Method,” Kari M. Kraus, Univ. of Maryland, College Park
  3. “Bots Are Machines for Words,” Mark Sample, Davidson Coll.

For abstracts, visit www.samplereality.com/makingasmethod/ after 1 Nov.

676. Literature and Science Meet Digital Humanities

Sunday, 11 January, 8:30–9:45 a.m., 222, VCC West

Presiding: Pamela Gossin, Univ. of Texas, Dallas

  1. “Mapping Intellectual Networks in Modernist Britain,” Caroline Hovanec, Univ. of Tampa
  2. “Reading Middle Distance: A Cultural History of Tools and Techniques,” Grant Wythoff, Columbia Univ.
  3. “Whole Earth Mediation and the Production of a Cosmic View,” Zach Horton, Univ. of California, Santa Barbara

For biographies and abstracts, visit commons.mla.org.

697. Bringing Digital Tools into the Classroom: A Case Study Using The Map of Early Modern London

Sunday, 11 January, 10:15–11:30 a.m., 117, VCC West

Presiding: Kimberley R. D. McLean-Fiander, Univ. of Victoria

Speakers: Peter C. Herman, San Diego State Univ.; Diane Jakacki, Bucknell Univ.; Kathryn McPherson, Utah Valley Univ.

Responding: Janelle A. Jenstad, Univ. of Victoria

For teaching materials, visit mapoflondon.uvic.ca/teaching.htm after 31 Dec.

This roundtable explores the mobilization of digital humanities (DH) projects to promote research-based learning (RBL). Participants in The Map of Early Modern London’s pedagogical partnership share their experience with, and posit general applications for, this modified crowd-sourced guest editorship that benefits instructors, helps students acquire digital research skills, and builds DH projects.

719. Literary Twitter

Sunday, 11 January, 10:15–11:30 a.m., 9, VCC East

Presiding: Kristina Booker, Southern Methodist Univ.

Speakers: Alexandra Edwards, Univ. of Georgia; Kathi Inman Berens, Univ. of Southern California; Nicole Kenley, Univ. of California, Davis; Sean P. O’Brien, Loyola Univ., Chicago; Jonathan Udelson, Univ. of Louisville; Franklin Winslow, Baruch Coll., City Univ. of New York

This roundtable investigates the increasingly prominent role of Twitter in literary culture and the profession. Participants offer brief presentations on literary adaptation on Twitter, tweets as identity performance, and Twitter-related pedagogical strategies, followed by a discussion of the usefulness of the platform in scholarship and teaching.

744. Technology and Language Learning: From Beginning to Advanced Levels of Study

Sunday, 11 January, 12:00 noon–1:15 p.m., 3, VCC East

Presiding: Sébastien Dubreil, Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville; Julie Sykes, Univ. of Oregon

For workshop manual, visit commons.mla.org after 15 Dec.

During this interactive session, participants explore a design framework for the integration of technology in the humanities classroom. Examples will be given for all levels of instruction and will focus on place-based learning and digital literacy. Upon completion of the session, participants will have a working model for integration in their own teaching and learning contexts.

753. Fragments and Mediation in Digital Performance

Sunday, 11 January, 1:45–3:00 p.m., 215, VCC West

Presiding: Jennifer Buckley, Univ. of Iowa

  1. “Fragmenting Shakespeare,” Sarah Werner, Folger Shakespeare Library
  2. “Mediated Liveness in Forced Entertainment’s #12amLIVE,” Jennifer Buckley

Responding: Donna Kornhaber, Univ. of Texas, Austin

763. More Weird Media: Literary Attributes of the Medium

Sunday, 11 January, 1:45–3:00 p.m., 120, VCC West

Presiding: Jason Camlot, Concordia Univ., QC

  1. “Bodies of Writing: Print and Beyond,” Ron Sweeney, Univ. of the Fraser Valley
  2. “Fidgety Thinkership,” Laura B. McGrath, Michigan State Univ.
  3. “Gaming the Archive: Engaging Literary, Sound, and Media Histories with PoetryLab,” Christine Mitchell, New York Univ.

For abstracts, write to jason.camlot@concordia.ca.

783. Revitalizing the Humanities in the Twenty-First Century

Sunday, 11 January, 1:45–3:00 p.m., 115, VCC West

Presiding: Michelle B. Slater, Mayapple Center for the Arts and Humanities

  1. “Getting People Talking: An Activist Approach to Education Reform,” Yevgenya Strakovsky, Stanford Univ.
  2. “Collaborative Rereading: Overcoming Impasses between Traditional and Digital Humanities,” Kaila Brown, Duke Univ.
  3. “Revitalizing the Humanities through Intercultural Studies,” David L. Porter, Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor

14 thoughts on “Digital Humanities at MLA 2015
Vancouver, January 8-10

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