Preamble
Dear friends and colleagues,
You are receiving this newsletter because you are a current member of the Association for Computing and the Humanities (ACH). The ACH is one of the proud constituent organizations of the Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations (ADHO). The ACH seeks to cultivate a vibrant professional community through support of conferences, publications, and outreach activities. Many people contribute to this work, including many of you (e.g. as conference reviewers), as well as members of the ACH Executive Council.
The ACH Executive Council has invested considerable energy this fall in strategizing about how we might further promote diversity and inclusivity within our community. We believe the ACH is not currently doing enough, nor are we doing enough within the larger ADHO family. ADHO has declared that “inclusivity is a core value” and has established an ad hoc Working Group whose “purpose is to promote the use of broadly inclusive language and participate in the development or refinement of policies, protocols, and informal practices meant to welcome more diverse constituencies to ADHO and strengthen the organization and field of digital humanities through their involvement.”
The ACH Executive strongly believes that diversity makes us stronger as a community and we’d invite all members to be mindful of this in our own scholarship and in the assessment of the scholarship of others.
In that context, we would enthusiastically receive any requests for occasional funding or sponsorship, especially ones that promote diversity. Our funds our limited, but but we’ll try to support what we can!
Finally, as you may be aware, John Nerbonne resigned this fall as Chair of the ADHO Steering Committee. John worked tirelessly on behalf of ADHO and its constituent organizations (including ACH), and I am deeply grateful for his efforts. Karina van Dalen-Oskam has been elected as the new Chair and the ACH Executive would like to warmly congratulate her and we look forward to her leadership in pursuing our common objectives.
With my very best wishes as your humble ACH President,
Stéfan Sinclair
ACH Elections – Vote by December 10
ACH members are entitled to vote in this year’s ACH’s election, in which a President, a Vice-President/President-elect, and three Executive Council members will be elected. The terms for all of these positions will begin at the close of the 2016 annual summer Executive Council meeting.
Per the recently amended ACH Constitution, the Vice President serves a two-year term and then becomes the President for an additional two-year term. Since this process is just beginning, a President must be elected for a two-year term. Members of the Executive Council serve four-year terms.
TWO candidates have been nominated to fill the position of PRESIDENT.
TWO candidates have been nominated to fill the position of VICE-PRESIDENT/PRESIDENT-ELECT.
TEN candidates have been nominated to fill three positions of EXECUTIVE COUNCIL MEMBER.
You will be entitled to vote for only ONE candidate for the positions of PRESIDENT and VICE-PRESIDENT, and for up to THREE candidates for the position of EXECUTIVE COUNCIL OFFICER.
Elections began at midday on November 20, 2015 and end at midnight GMT on December 10 2015. Details of all the candidates can be found on the ACH website, or by clicking on the candidate links in the Online Voting Form.
To place your vote online, you will need your Subscription Number and your unique Voting Token sent to you by email. The token ensures that each member may vote only once and that the results are submitted anonymously. All queries and questions about the elections should be addressed to the Chair of the Nominations Committee, Élika Ortega (elections@ach.org). Please contact Élika if you don’t seem to have received a voting token and you’re sure you’re a current member.
Events
DH2016
Digital Humanities 2016 will take place from July 12-16, 2016 in Kraków, Poland. The Call for Papers is now closed and proposal reviews are due this coming December 13th (if you’ve been assigned reviews). There’s still time to submit a Workshop Proposal by February 14th, if you’re interested. Bursaries for Early-Career and Emerging Scholars will be available, guidelines will be posted soon at the ADHO website.
CSDH/SCHN 2016
The Canadian Society for Digital Humanities invites scholars, practitioners, and graduate students to submit proposals for papers and digital demonstrations for its annual meeting, which will be held at the 2016 Congress of the Social Sciences and Humanities, University of Calgary, from May 30th to June 1. We encourage submissions on all topics relating to both theory and practice in the evolving field of the digital humanities. Scholars in the digital humanities are engaged in diverse digital and computer-assisted research, teaching, and creation. CSDH/SCHN welcomes proposals in French or English from all constituencies and disciplines, and encourages applications from women, Aboriginal and Métis people, people of color, LGBTQ, or other underrepresented groups. Proposals for papers (20 min.), digital demonstrations,, and panels (2-6 speakers for a 90-minute session) will be accepted until 10 December 2015 and must be submitted to https://www.conftool.net/csdh-schn-2016/. Full CFP.
What’s new on Digital Humanities Questions & Answers?
DH Q&A is crowd-sourced digital humanities expertise! It’s a community-driven forum for questions pertaining to the digital humanities that may need a bit more than 140 character answers. If you have questions (or answers!) consider joining the conversation!
Recent discussions include Named Entity Recognition Tools for finding dates and ‘traces of time’ in French and English, finding funding agencies that can support DH projects in India, displaying Latin and English translations, and getting started with Gephi.
Keep in touch
Keep in touch with the ACH online at @achdotorg, http://www.facebook.com/ACHorg or http://ach.org/news/.
As always, the Humanist mailing list features job posts, calls for papers and discussion of a range of issues in the digital humanities.