Loughborough University, Loughborough, United Kingdom, 31 May, 2017.

Deadline: 10 March, 2017

 

This interdisciplinary workshop invites participants to debate ways in which readers, publishers, archivists, and curators engage with the computer screen and its technologies for the purpose of accessing, preserving, and displaying textual material and paper artefacts. Is the persistence of books and book-like forms in the digital ecology an obstacle or necessity to our understanding of screen-based media? How far can innovative, digital forms stray from their recognizable counterparts in the analogue world before they become too alien for users? Can engagement with a screen effectively replace tactile engagement with a paper manuscript? The aim of the workshop is to explore mechanisms for the bibliographical ‘control’, display, and archiving of textual media in a digital environment; to develop a critical vocabulary for the purpose of examining the ontology and phenomenology of paper artefacts that migrate to screens; and to debate strategies for the preservation and display of digital and digitized texts. By looking for common ground in a collaborative, cross-disciplinary forum, we seek to provide a new account of textual ‘form’ and its accessibility in the digital environment. We welcome innovative cross-disciplinary approaches to these issues and also encourage proposals from specialists in the museum sector, publishing, and software industries.

 

 

Proposals for presentations (20 minutes) should be sent to Kathryn Brown (k.j.brown@lboro.ac.uk) and Wim van Mierlo (W.Van-Mierlo@lboro.ac.uk) by no later than 10 March, 2017. Proposals should contain an abstract (max 350 words) and a short biographical note (max 250 words).

 

 

Notification of the outcome of proposals will be sent by 24 March, 2017. Unfortunately, we are unable to offer financial support for travel or accommodation.