DH 2010 conference

I’m at the Digital Humanities 2010 conference in London, England. The conference is taking place at King’s College London. I’m on two panel and giving a paper (with others):

Some of the themes that are coming up at the conference are:

  • Inclusion. At the ACH AGM we had a conversation about how to explain the field and things like posters to people new to it. Elsewhere we discussed who is included or not. This year there was a THATcamp before DH which was, by all accounts, inclusive and lively. (While I didn’t participate, I’m judging the Developers Challenge.
  • Graduate Consortium. The idea of creating some sort of graduate consortium where graduate students could meet and organize activities is coming up in different contexts.
  • Historicizing the Field. I’m seeing more and more reflections on the history of computing in the humanities. Of particular note is the archive of conference abstracts being put together by John Unsworth and others. I see this as an example of how the field is trying to document itself to its own standards.
  • Embroidered Digital Commons. There were some neat projects run in parallel with DH. I participated in the Embroidered Digital Commons, an artwork faciltiated by Ele Carpenter as part of the Open Source Embroidery project. I love these participatory projects.

Jobs. The ACH ran a neat Jobs-Slam at its Annual General Meeting. Jobs are becoming an issue as the field expands and people see humanities computing as a source of alternative para-academic careers. I was surprised how many jobs were promoted at the AGM.

On the subject of jobs, Stéfan Sinclair shared two places where jobs are being posted that were new to me:

Arts & Humanities Net: http://www.arts-humanities.net/jobs

HASTAC: http://www.hastac.org/forums/announcements-and-opportunities/fellowship-and-employment-opportunities