In June, Jack Dougherty and Kristen Nawrotzki posted here about the challenges and opportunities of “building a born-digital edited volume” about Writing History in the Digital Age.
I was reminded of this when I consulted my calendar: Today I am scheduled to be at Trinity College to participate in a discussion forum about the book, the process of creating it, and the intervention it might make in academic culture. Of course, I live about 20 minutes away from Hartford, and so this is very easy. Key to the premise of the book, however is that anyone can participate in the discussion around it, especially at this critical stage before it goes off to the U of Michigan Press. Here’s an announcement Dougherty and Nawrotzki have distributed:
We invite all readers to comment on our born-digital edited volume, Writing History in the Digital Age, an open-access collection of thirty essays under contract with the University of Michigan Press for the Digital Humanities Series of its digitalculturebooks imprint. Learn more at:
http://WritingHistory.trincoll.edu
Join us online as we discuss, debate, and demonstrate how historical writing is being reshaped by a range of digital tools and techniques: crowdsourcing, relational databases, text encoding, spatial analysis, visual media, gaming simulations, and online collaborations.
During the open review period (now through November 14th), we welcome feedback from the public as well as from expert reviewers appointed by the Press. In the interest of openness, all commenters must use their full names. Pending the final selection of essays, author revisions, and approval by the Press, the volume will be published in print-on-demand and freely-accessible digital versions.
As you’ll see in Dougherty and Nawrotzki’s introduction, the volume is still taking shape, as the press is likely to expect some further cuts. While the book’s content largely draws on topics in 19th and 20thC histories of the United States, the arguments it engages about scholarly authority in a world of RTs and Like buttons strike me as broadly relevant within higher education. Several of the essays describe assignments, courses, or scholarly projects that also might interest regular readers of ProfHacker.
Please join in the discussion!
