HASTAC 2015: The Art and Science of Digital Humanities

Our unique roundtable emerges from ongoing efforts within the digital humanities and computers and writing communities to create dialogue across the two fields. Examples of such efforts include the 2011 Computers and Writing Conference Town Hall titled, “Are You a Digital Humanist?” and a Twitter and Google docs discussion (#cwdhped) that took place this summer (see http://bit.ly/1wO2Pqg). The goal of the the #cwdhped was to create opportunities for these two different but related academic communities to come together.

We share common concerns about teaching with/about technology, new media theory, and the future of scholarly communication. Yet-- as Cheryl Ball out it in the Google Document exchanges-- "these two groups don’t hardly ever ;) share their knowledge, mostly because there’s so little space for this kind of conversation.” Our session is an effort to push forward such a conversation via three-minute lightning talks [or position statements] followed by a moderated discussion between the panelists and audience around the following questions:

* What are the connections or disconnections between the ‘Computers and Writing’ community and the ‘Digital Humanities’ community?

* What are the benefits of engagement across these communities?

* What are the obstacles limiting productive connections?

Our goal is to hold our panel simultaneously at both the HASTAC conference at Michigan State and the Computers and Writing conference at the University of Wisconsin, which is also scheduled for the weekend of May 30, 2015. Joint proposals will be submitted to each conference and through some careful scheduling and simple simulcast technologies, we hope to create a real time space where these two groups can come together.