CFP: Digital Humanities Pedagogies in Times of Crisis

The International Journal of Humanities and Arts Computing invites submissions for a special issue, “Digital Humanities Pedagogies in Times of Crisis,” edited by Drs. Roopika Risam (Dartmouth College) and Sara Dias-Trindade (Universidade do Porto and CEIS20). From the call:

From the COVID-19 pandemic, to the Russian war against Ukraine, to accelerating climate change, to the rise of neo-fascist politics that target racial and ethnic minorities, refugees, and gender minorities, the last several years have found us teaching in times of overlapping crises. For some, recent years have been an introduction to teaching under crisis, while others have been enduring and teaching under such conditions for a long time. For this special issue, “Digital Humanities Pedagogies in Times of Crisis,” we solicit essays that take up the question of how to tackle the challenge of teaching under such constraints.

“Digital Humanities Pedagogies in Times of Crisis” builds on the body of scholarship on digital humanities pedagogy that has illuminated its importance for developing students’ multimodal literacies and critical thinking and collaboration skills, and has positioned students as critical consumers and users of computational and digital technologies. These include: the volume Digital Humanities Pedagogy: Practices, Principles, and Politics, edited by Brett D. Hirsch (2012); the visibility of pedagogy in the Debates in the Digital Humanities Series (2012 to present), edited by Matthew K. Gold and Lauren F. Klein; the CEA Critic digital humanities pedagogy special issue (2014); and the Journal of Interactive Technology and Pedagogy (2012 to present), among other interventions.

This issue prompts contributors to reflect on this pedagogical history of digital humanities to explore how the goals, objectives, and pedagogical methods they embrace in the classroom have shifted in response to the manifold crises of our times. Those of us teaching digital humanities have collectively developed a significant body of knowledge of how to adapt, hack, and hotwire our teaching practices to respond to the needs of our students, educational institutions, and the wider community. Drawing on the affordances of digital humanities, we have also built on intra-institutional, inter-institutional, and international collaboration to help students learn how to produce and disseminate knowledge. Through this issue, we aim to lay bare these practices and share them, to collectively build our and our students’ capacities to continue this vital work despite the barriers we encounter.

Topics may include but are not limited to:

• How has teaching digital humanities changed from before the pandemic and throughout its long course?
• What challenges have the disruptions of the last several years posed to hands-on approaches to teaching and learning in digital humanities and how can instructors address them?
• Which core concepts or skills in digital humanities pedagogy have become most important while teaching in times of crisis and why?
• Which approaches to teaching exploratory programming to undergraduate or graduate students have been effective while teaching online or remotely?
• How can digital humanities pedagogy be mobilized or adapted to respond to our students when they are coping with trauma and mental health challenges?
• What kinds of collaborative approaches to teaching (e.g., with colleagues locally, nationally or globally; with galleries, libraries, archives, and museums) have worked effectively in times of crisis?
• How have instructors selected learning concepts or objectives and classroom activities in response to virtual, hy-flex, and other less-traditional modes of learning?
• How have the needs of undergraduate and graduate students in digital humanities courses differed in the context of crises, and how have instructors addressed them?
• What are some successful strategies for preparing future teachers to adopt digital humanities pedagogies in response to their students’ needs?
• How have approaches to teaching digital humanities in times of crisis helped expand the communities of practice in the field?
• In what ways have digital humanities pedagogies assisted instructors who may not identify as “digital humanists” with teaching under the constraints of the world’s ongoing crises?
• How has the experience of integrating digital humanities into a content-driven course vs. teaching courses explicitly on digital humanities differed over the last several years?
• What strategies have those who use learning management systems used to adapt their pedagogy?
• Looking forward, in hopes of a brighter future, what teaching strategies, curricula, and learning outcomes could digital humanities courses integrate?

The deadline for submissions is 31 January 2023 and can be sent to ijhac[at]fcsh.unl.pt.