Digital Dickens
There has been a growing number of online projects in Dickens studies over the past few years, but discussion of the role Digital Humanities has to play in Dickens scholarship (and vice versa) has been limited so far to conference papers and individual articles. A new book, Digital Dickens, edited by Emily Bell, Pete Orford and Claire Wood, aims to offer a more coherent and comprehensive evaluation of the field and provide a basis on which future projects can build.
The organisers invite expressions of interest for contributions to a section on ‘Tools and Approaches’, which aims to provide both theoretical overviews and specific case studies of different DH techniques as applied to Dickens. Contributors are asked to target their chapters towards researchers more familiar with Dickens than digital humanities: how might a researcher replicate these methods and/or work with existing datasets and projects? What kind of results might they find? These are some of the questions the organisers invite contributors to consider.
The organisers have already commissioned several chapters for this section, including on Dickens and corpus linguistics and social network analysis. The organisers are looking for chapters of 4000 words on the topics below. If you have an idea for a chapter on a DH topic that is not represented here, the organisers would also like to hear from you, to ensure this volume is representative of the most exciting work taking place in the field. Abstracts of 200-250 words will be solicited once topics have been agreed with the editors, and full chapters would be due in Summer 2023.
The organisers are seeking ‘state of the field’ chapters on the following topics:
- Machine Learning
- Digital Mapping
- Linked Data
- Data Visualisation
Note: these chapters will mostly likely provide a snapshot of these areas that is much wider than Dickens studies, and the organisers therefore encourage people working beyond Dickens in these areas to get in touch.
The organisers are seeking case studies relating to Dickens on the following topics:
- Data Visualisation
- Digital Mapping
To discuss a possible contribution, please email E.J.L.Bell@leeds.ac.uk with a brief indication of the topic in which you are interested and a short biography by 15 July 2022.