CFP: Special Issue
Victorian Periodicals Review
“Digital Pedagogies: Building Learning Communities for Studying Victorian Periodicals”
Deadline: July 1, 2014

Essays of 6,000-7,000 words are sought for a special number of Victorian Periodicals Review inspired by the range of research and good practice that has been developed in recent years by scholars of the nineteenth century periodical press.

Since Patrick Leary’s seminal essay “Googling the Victorians”, first published in 2005, significant advancements have been made in the field of periodical research, largely as a result of the rise in digital projects. In almost ten years of scholarship, researchers have been examining and developing new digital methods for analysing and extrapolating data. Scholars have been considering not only the construction of digital resources but how they can be used in many different ways; to enhance research, to identify neglected texts, to inspire and engage students. This special number of VPR gives us the opportunity to bring together these ideas and debates, to reflect on how the field of periodicals research has changed as a result of the digital revolution and to consider where it may be in the next ten years.

Possible topics might include:

• The role of the digital archive in uniting disparate periodicals and newspapers
• Building, constructing, maintaining digital projects on periodicals
• Rise of the collaborative digital project
• New methods for research and data analysis of circulation figures, distribution and ‘popularity’ of publications
• Advances in the visualisation of data for identifying patterns of consumption
• Contribution of genealogy studies  to identifying periodical authors
• New software packages for the presentation of periodical research and analysis
• Models of good practice in teaching and learning with periodicals and newspapers
• Student publishing – selection, editing and curation of periodicals projects
• Building learning communities for staff and students to enhance knowledge of the nineteenth century press
• Debates about the emergence of an alternative ‘digital’ canon of periodicals and newspapers
• Digital literacy/digital competency in accessing periodicals online

Please submit completed manuscripts by July 1, 2014 (for publication in 2015) in Word (no PDFs please) to C.L.Horrocks@ljmu.ac.uk. In the meantime, informal queries or expressions of interest are welcome.