Keep an eye out for this great special issue coming soon in Literature Compass! The line-up is as follows:

“Scholarly Editing in the Twenty-First Century” – Preface’, Regenia Gagnier, Literature Compass 6 (2009), 10.1111/j.1741-4113.2009.00672.x

“Scholarly Editing in the Twenty-First Century” – Introduction’, Arthur F. Marotti, Literature Compass 6 (2009), 10.1111/j.1741-4113.2009.00673.x

‘Electronic Archives and Critical Editing’, Jerome McGann, Literature Compass 6 (2009), 10.1111/j.1741-4113.2009.00674.x

‘Theorizing the Digital Scholarly Edition’, Hans Walter Gabler, Literature Compass 6 (2009), 10.1111/j.1741-4113.2009.00675.x

‘Editing Without Walls’, Peter Robinson, Literature Compass 6 (2009), 10.1111/j.1741-4113.2009.00676.x

‘Our Affection for Books’, Susan J. Wolfson, Literature Compass 6 (2009), 10.1111/j.1741-4113.2009.00677.x

‘His Days Among the Dead Are No Longer Passed: Editing Robert Southey’, Lynda Pratt, Literature Compass 6 (2009), 10.1111/j.1741-4113.2009.00678.x

‘Different Demands, Different Priorities: Electronic and Print Editions’, Stuart Curran, Literature Compass 6 (2009), 10.1111/j.1741-4113.2009.00679.x

‘Editing Manuscripts in Print and Digital Forms’, Arthur F. Marotti, Literature Compass 6 (2009), 10.1111/j.1741-4113.2009.00680.x

‘All of the Above: The Importance of Multiple Editions of Renaissance Manuscripts’, Steven W. May, Literature Compass 6 (2009), 10.1111/j.1741-4113.2009.00681.x

‘Editing Early Modern Women’s Manuscripts: Theory, Electronic Editions, and the Accidental Copy-Text’, Margaret J.M. Ezell, Literature Compass 6 (2009), 10.1111/j.1741-4113.2009.00682.x

‘Different Strokes, Same Folk: Designing the Multi-form Digital Edition’, Daniel Paul O’Donnell, Literature Compass 6 (2009), 10.1111/j.1741-4113.2009.00683.x

“Scholarly Editing in the Twenty-First Century” – A Conclusion’, Laura Mandell, Literature Compass 6 (2009), 10.1111/j.1741-4113.2009.00684.x

“Scholarly Editing in the Twenty-First Century” – Combined Bibliography’, Marotti et al., Literature Compass 6 (2009), 10.1111/j.1741-4113.2009.00685.x

—————————-

Image source: Jef Poskanzer, Wikimedia Commons

Now that we’ve come to the end, the Compass team would like to say a heartfelt ‘thank you’ to everyone who has participated and made our first virtual conference an overwhelming success. The authors and presenters have been, without exception, engaging and professional to the last. We’d also like to extend a special note of thanks to our virtual attendees, who have kept the discussions alive with insightful commentary, and their openness to explore issues across disciplines.

There will be no new content uploaded to the site after Friday 30th October, but there is still much to discuss. All of the presentations and comments will remain on the website indefinitely, and we’d encourage you all to keep engaging with the content so long as there are issues to be explored, and interdisciplinary barriers to be broken down! If you sign up to receive email alerts of new comments, you can keep up with any ongoing conversations.

We sincerely hope you have enjoyed the conference – here are some things that you can do to stay in touch:

• Check out the Compass journals and recommend to your librarian. Researchers, teaching faculty, and advanced students will all benefit from the accessible, informative articles that provide overviews of current research. Personal subscriptions are now also available.
• Complete the post-conference opinion survey, coming to you next week. Your thoughts will help us make decisions about future conferences.
• If you have suggestions, or even just a short comment, you can pop it in our Suggestion Box or Email us
• Access the Publishing Workshops and Keynotes via iTunes (as from the conference website). The raw feed for the podcasts can be found here.
• Share our keynote video lectures via our Vimeo channel
• Tell others about your experience of the conference!

Final reminder: your 20% book discount token is valid until 15th November, so visit the book exhibit before then.

Until next time…?

Thanks again,

The Compass Team
www.blackwell-compass.com

Now that we’ve come to the end, the Compass team would like to say a heartfelt ‘thank you’ to everyone who has participated and made our first virtual conference an overwhelming success. The authors and presenters have been, without exception, engaging and professional to the last. We’d also like to extend a special note of thanks to our virtual attendees, who have kept the discussions alive with insightful commentary, and their openness to explore issues across disciplines.

There will be no new content uploaded to the site after Friday 30th October, but there is still much to discuss. All of the presentations and comments will remain on the website indefinitely, and we’d encourage you all to keep engaging with the content so long as there are issues to be explored, and interdisciplinary barriers to be broken down! If you sign up to receive email alerts of new comments, you can keep up with any ongoing conversations.

We sincerely hope you have enjoyed the conference – here are some things that you can do to stay in touch:

• Check out the Compass journals and recommend to your librarian. Researchers, teaching faculty, and advanced students will all benefit from the accessible, informative articles that provide overviews of current research. Personal subscriptions are now also available.
• Complete the post-conference opinion survey, coming to you next week. Your thoughts will help us make decisions about future conferences.
• If you have suggestions, or even just a short comment, you can pop it in our Suggestion Box or Email us
• Access the Publishing Workshops and Keynotes via iTunes (as from the conference website). The raw feed for the podcasts can be found here.
• Share our keynote video lectures via our Vimeo channel
• Tell others about your experience of the conference!

Final reminder: your 20% book discount token is valid until 15th November, so visit the book exhibit before then.

Until next time…?

Thanks again,

The Compass Team
www.blackwell-compass.com

By Paula Bowles

Today marked the penultimate day of Wiley-Blackwell’s first Virtual Conference. As I am sure you will all agree, thus far, each day has contained many gems, and today has been no different. Eileen Joy’s (Southern Illinois University Edwardsville) keynote lecture: ‘Reading Beowulf in the Ruins of Grozny: Pre/modern, Post/human, and the Question of Being‐Together’ looks at the aftermath of the Russian bombing of Chechnya through the lens of Beowulf.

The two final papers of the conference were provided by P. Grady Dixon (Mississippi State University) & Adam J Kalkstein (United States Military Academy) and Nicole Mathieu (CNRS, University of Paris). Their papers respectively entitled: ‘Climate–Suicide Relationships: A Research Problem in Need of Geographic Methods and Cross‐Disciplinary Perspectives’ and ‘Constructing an interdisciplinary concept of sustainable urban milieu’ have looked at indisciplinarity from a geographical and environmental perspective. The final publishing workshop was ‘How to Survive the Review Process’ by Greg Maney (Hofstra University).

Although, the conference is due to end tomorrow it is not too late to register and take advantage of the book discount and free journal access. Each of the papers and podcasts will remain on the website, and it is hoped that you will keep the comments coming in.

By Paula Bowles

Today marked the penultimate day of Wiley-Blackwell’s first Virtual Conference. As I am sure you will all agree, thus far, each day has contained many gems, and today has been no different. Eileen Joy’s (Southern Illinois University Edwardsville) keynote lecture: ‘Reading Beowulf in the Ruins of Grozny: Pre/modern, Post/human, and the Question of Being‐Together’ looks at the aftermath of the Russian bombing of Chechnya through the lens of Beowulf.

The two final papers of the conference were provided by P. Grady Dixon (Mississippi State University) & Adam J Kalkstein (United States Military Academy) and Nicole Mathieu (CNRS, University of Paris). Their papers respectively entitled: ‘Climate–Suicide Relationships: A Research Problem in Need of Geographic Methods and Cross‐Disciplinary Perspectives’ and ‘Constructing an interdisciplinary concept of sustainable urban milieu’ have looked at indisciplinarity from a geographical and environmental perspective. The final publishing workshop was ‘How to Survive the Review Process’ by Greg Maney (Hofstra University).

Although, the conference is due to end tomorrow it is not too late to register and take advantage of the book discount and free journal access. Each of the papers and podcasts will remain on the website, and it is hoped that you will keep the comments coming in.

By Paula Bowles

Day eight of the conference was once again marked by some excellent contributions. The first paper ‘Cultural Sociology and Other Disciplines: Interdisciplinarity in the Cultural Sciences’ by Diane Crane (University of Pennsylvania) suggests that for many scholars ‘disciplinary isolation is the norm.’ However, Crane proposes that by utilising what she describes as ‘free‐floating paradigms’ such barriers can be removed.

The second paper of the day by Christine Mallinson, (University of Maryland) entitled ‘Sociolinguistics and Sociology: Current Directions, Future Partnerships’ also takes sociology and interdisciplinarity as its main themes. Mallinson’s paper concludes with practical advice as to how best to achieve research partnerships.

Together with these exciting papers, Catherine Sanderson (Amherst College) offered advice in her publishing workshop: ‘The Joys and Sorrows of Writing an Undergraduate Textbook.’ There was also an opportunity to spend time in the Second Life cocktail bar with the Compass Team.

By Paula Bowles

Day eight of the conference was once again marked by some excellent contributions. The first paper ‘Cultural Sociology and Other Disciplines: Interdisciplinarity in the Cultural Sciences’ by Diane Crane (University of Pennsylvania) suggests that for many scholars ‘disciplinary isolation is the norm.’ However, Crane proposes that by utilising what she describes as ‘free‐floating paradigms’ such barriers can be removed.

The second paper of the day by Christine Mallinson, (University of Maryland) entitled ‘Sociolinguistics and Sociology: Current Directions, Future Partnerships’ also takes sociology and interdisciplinarity as its main themes. Mallinson’s paper concludes with practical advice as to how best to achieve research partnerships.

Together with these exciting papers, Catherine Sanderson (Amherst College) offered advice in her publishing workshop: ‘The Joys and Sorrows of Writing an Undergraduate Textbook.’ There was also an opportunity to spend time in the Second Life cocktail bar with the Compass Team.

By Paula Bowles

The seventh day of the conference has continued with the key themes of ‘breaking down boundaries’ and interdisciplinarity. Roy Baumeister (Florida State University) began the day with his keynote lecture entitled ‘Human Nature and Culture: What is the Human Mind Designed for?’ By utilising the concepts of evolutionary and cultural psychology, Buameister is able to explore the intrinsic significance culture holds for humanity.

Two other papers were also presented today. ‘Text as It Happens: Literary Geography’ by Sheila Hones (University of Tokyo) and Stefan Müller’s (University of Duisburg‐Essen) ‘Equal Representation of Time and Space: Arno Peters’ Universal History.’ These contributions have utilised a wide and diverse range of disciplines including history, cartography, geography and literature. Finally, Devonya Havis’ publishing workshop entitled ‘Teaching with Compass’ offers some interesting ideas as to how best implement technology within the classroom.

By Paula Bowles

The seventh day of the conference has continued with the key themes of ‘breaking down boundaries’ and interdisciplinarity. Roy Baumeister (Florida State University) began the day with his keynote lecture entitled ‘Human Nature and Culture: What is the Human Mind Designed for?’ By utilising the concepts of evolutionary and cultural psychology, Buameister is able to explore the intrinsic significance culture holds for humanity.

Two other papers were also presented today. ‘Text as It Happens: Literary Geography’ by Sheila Hones (University of Tokyo) and Stefan Müller’s (University of Duisburg‐Essen) ‘Equal Representation of Time and Space: Arno Peters’ Universal History.’ These contributions have utilised a wide and diverse range of disciplines including history, cartography, geography and literature. Finally, Devonya Havis’ publishing workshop entitled ‘Teaching with Compass’ offers some interesting ideas as to how best implement technology within the classroom.

By Paula Bowles

Welcome to the second week of the Wiley-Blackwell Virtual Conference. The first day back has started with a keynote speech from Peter Ludlow (Northwestern University) entitled ‘Virtual Communities, Virtual Cultures, Virtual Governance.’ Conference delegates also had the opportunity to meet Peter at the Second Life Cocktail Bar.

There were two other papers on Monday’s session Adam Brown’s (Deakin University): ‘Beyond ‘Good’ and ‘Evil’: Breaking Down Binary Oppositions in Holocaust Representations of ‘Privileged’ Jews’ and ‘A Hybrid Model of Moral Panics: Synthesizing the Theory and Practice of Moral Panic Research’ presented by Brian V. Klocke (State University of New York, Plattsburgh) & Glenn Muschert (Miami University). In addition Wiley-Blackwell’s Vanessa Lafaye held a publishing workshop entitled ‘The Secret to Online Publishing Success.’

As you can see, this week promises to be as exciting and innovative as the previous one. All of the papers and workshops from last week are still available to download from the conference site, and both the ‘battle of the bands’ and the opportunity to contribute a ‘winning comment’ remain.

By Paula Bowles

Welcome to the second week of the Wiley-Blackwell Virtual Conference. The first day back has started with a keynote speech from Peter Ludlow (Northwestern University) entitled ‘Virtual Communities, Virtual Cultures, Virtual Governance.’ Conference delegates also had the opportunity to meet Peter at the Second Life Cocktail Bar.

There were two other papers on Monday’s session Adam Brown’s (Deakin University): ‘Beyond ‘Good’ and ‘Evil’: Breaking Down Binary Oppositions in Holocaust Representations of ‘Privileged’ Jews’ and ‘A Hybrid Model of Moral Panics: Synthesizing the Theory and Practice of Moral Panic Research’ presented by Brian V. Klocke (State University of New York, Plattsburgh) & Glenn Muschert (Miami University). In addition Wiley-Blackwell’s Vanessa Lafaye held a publishing workshop entitled ‘The Secret to Online Publishing Success.’

As you can see, this week promises to be as exciting and innovative as the previous one. All of the papers and workshops from last week are still available to download from the conference site, and both the ‘battle of the bands’ and the opportunity to contribute a ‘winning comment’ remain.

by paulabowles

The first week of the conference has come to an end, and the final day has included two exciting papers, as well as a publishing workshop. The first paper entitled ‘Full Disclosure of the “Raw Data” of Research on Humans: Citizens’ Rights, Product Manufacturer’s Obligations and the Quality of the Scientific Database’ was presented by Dennis Mazur (Oregon Health and Sciences University). In his lecture, Mazur highlights the difficult and contentious issues involved in human testing, particularly the tensions between participants and drug manufacturers.

The second paper also takes an interdisciplinary approach to medical matters. Eileen Smith‐Cavros (Nova Southeastern University) lecture entitled ‘Fertility and Inequality Across Borders: Assisted Reproductive Technology and Globalization’ looks at the emotive issue of assisted reproduction. By surveying existing literature, Smith Cavros is able to look in detail at some of the many issues which impact upon reproduction.

Together with these two papers, Duane Wegener’s (Purdue University) publishing workshop: ‘Top 10 mistakes New Scholars Make When Trying to Get Published’ marked the end of the first week.

Enjoy the weekend and we look forward to seeing you next week.

by paulabowles

The first week of the conference has come to an end, and the final day has included two exciting papers, as well as a publishing workshop. The first paper entitled ‘Full Disclosure of the “Raw Data” of Research on Humans: Citizens’ Rights, Product Manufacturer’s Obligations and the Quality of the Scientific Database’ was presented by Dennis Mazur (Oregon Health and Sciences University). In his lecture, Mazur highlights the difficult and contentious issues involved in human testing, particularly the tensions between participants and drug manufacturers.

The second paper also takes an interdisciplinary approach to medical matters. Eileen Smith‐Cavros (Nova Southeastern University) lecture entitled ‘Fertility and Inequality Across Borders: Assisted Reproductive Technology and Globalization’ looks at the emotive issue of assisted reproduction. By surveying existing literature, Smith Cavros is able to look in detail at some of the many issues which impact upon reproduction.

Together with these two papers, Duane Wegener’s (Purdue University) publishing workshop: ‘Top 10 mistakes New Scholars Make When Trying to Get Published’ marked the end of the first week.

Enjoy the weekend and we look forward to seeing you next week.

by paulabowles The conference today has taken on a distinctly environmental feel. First up was Mark Macklin’s (University of Wales, Aberystwyth) keynote address entitled ‘Floodplain Catastrophes and Climate Change: Lessons from the Rise and Fall of Riverine Societies.’ In his paper, Macklin observes that ‘[w]e are not the first society to face the threat of environmental catastrophe,’ although he stresses that the current threat has unique features. Susan Morrison (Texas State University – San Marcos) has taken a highly interdisciplinary approach to her paper ‘Waste Studies ‐ A New Paradigm for Literary Analysis, Something is Rotten in the Denmark of Beowulf and Hamlet’. By combining the disciplines of literature and waste studies, Morrison offers a reminder ‘that the origins of the Anglophone literary canon are sedimented in waste’. Tim Cooper (University of Exeter, Cornwall Campus) continued this theme of waste with his paper ‘Recycling Modernity: Towards an Environmental History of Waste.’ By taking as a starting point the belief that ‘waste was one of the characteristic products of modernity’ Cooper is able to consider why this subject is so fascinating to historians and other social scientists. Before, we head into the fifth day of the conference, just a quick reminder to visit the virtual book exhibit. As a delegate, you are invited to take 20% off the price of any Wiley Book.

by paulabowles The conference today has taken on a distinctly environmental feel. First up was Mark Macklin’s (University of Wales, Aberystwyth) keynote address entitled ‘Floodplain Catastrophes and Climate Change: Lessons from the Rise and Fall of Riverine Societies.’ In his paper, Macklin observes that ‘[w]e are not the first society to face the threat of environmental catastrophe,’ although he stresses that the current threat has unique features. Susan Morrison (Texas State University – San Marcos) has taken a highly interdisciplinary approach to her paper ‘Waste Studies ‐ A New Paradigm for Literary Analysis, Something is Rotten in the Denmark of Beowulf and Hamlet’. By combining the disciplines of literature and waste studies, Morrison offers a reminder ‘that the origins of the Anglophone literary canon are sedimented in waste’. Tim Cooper (University of Exeter, Cornwall Campus) continued this theme of waste with his paper ‘Recycling Modernity: Towards an Environmental History of Waste.’ By taking as a starting point the belief that ‘waste was one of the characteristic products of modernity’ Cooper is able to consider why this subject is so fascinating to historians and other social scientists. Before, we head into the fifth day of the conference, just a quick reminder to visit the virtual book exhibit. As a delegate, you are invited to take 20% off the price of any Wiley Book.

by paulabowles

Today’s papers have focused once more on the key motifs of the conference, that of breaking down borders and indisciplinarity. Nancy Naples (University of Connecticut) uses her paper: ‘Borderlands Studies and Border Theory: Linking Activism and Scholarship for Social Justice’ to highlight just some of the difficulties faced when ‘negotiate[ing] different disciplinary frames, methods, and theoretical assumptions in order to move forward toward collaborative problem solving’.

The second paper today entitled ‘Theorizing Borders in a ‘Borderless World’: Globalization, Territory and Identity’ was presented by Alexander Diener (Pepperdine University) and Joshua Hagen (Marshall University). The authors question the assumption that world is becoming increasingly borderless, instead suggesting that state borders continue to ‘remain one of the most basic and visible features of the international system.’

Finally, on the third day of the conference Kivmars Bowling (Wiley-Blackwell) has presented a particularly relevant publishing workshop entitled ‘The Online Author’s Survival Guide’. The daily book prize was awarded to Maeve O’Donovan for her comment on David Crystal’s keynote lecture and the conference day ended in the Second Life cocktail bar.

by paulabowles

Today’s papers have focused once more on the key motifs of the conference, that of breaking down borders and indisciplinarity. Nancy Naples (University of Connecticut) uses her paper: ‘Borderlands Studies and Border Theory: Linking Activism and Scholarship for Social Justice’ to highlight just some of the difficulties faced when ‘negotiate[ing] different disciplinary frames, methods, and theoretical assumptions in order to move forward toward collaborative problem solving’.

The second paper today entitled ‘Theorizing Borders in a ‘Borderless World’: Globalization, Territory and Identity’ was presented by Alexander Diener (Pepperdine University) and Joshua Hagen (Marshall University). The authors question the assumption that world is becoming increasingly borderless, instead suggesting that state borders continue to ‘remain one of the most basic and visible features of the international system.’

Finally, on the third day of the conference Kivmars Bowling (Wiley-Blackwell) has presented a particularly relevant publishing workshop entitled ‘The Online Author’s Survival Guide’. The daily book prize was awarded to Maeve O’Donovan for her comment on David Crystal’s keynote lecture and the conference day ended in the Second Life cocktail bar.

by paulabowles

The second day of the conference has been filled with three more interesting and innovative papers. David Crystal’s (University of Bangor) keynote lecture entitled ‘Language Death: A Problem for All’ highlights the troubling statistics that ‘96% of the world’s languages are spoken by just 4% of the people’. Given the interdisciplinary nature, and the methodology of this virtual conference, Crystal’s paper draws attention to the use of language as a way to ‘break down barriers’.

The two other papers presented today relate to disability, albeit with very different approaches. The first was given by Wendy Turner (Augusta State University) and is entitled: ‘Human Rights, Royal Rights and the Mentally Disabled in Late Medieval England.’ In her paper Turner suggests that modern preconceptions of medieval disability are not generally supported by the empirical evidence. The second paper ‘The Status of the Learning Disabled in Philosophy of Mind and Disability Studies’ by Maeve M. O’Donovan (College of Notre Dame of Maryland), approaches the subject of learning disability through personal and academic experience and research.

As well, as the ongoing ‘battle of the bands’ competition – plenty of time still to vote! – today also saw the first ‘winning comment’ prize awarded to Rebecca Wheeler.

by paulabowles

The second day of the conference has been filled with three more interesting and innovative papers. David Crystal’s (University of Bangor) keynote lecture entitled ‘Language Death: A Problem for All’ highlights the troubling statistics that ‘96% of the world’s languages are spoken by just 4% of the people’. Given the interdisciplinary nature, and the methodology of this virtual conference, Crystal’s paper draws attention to the use of language as a way to ‘break down barriers’.

The two other papers presented today relate to disability, albeit with very different approaches. The first was given by Wendy Turner (Augusta State University) and is entitled: ‘Human Rights, Royal Rights and the Mentally Disabled in Late Medieval England.’ In her paper Turner suggests that modern preconceptions of medieval disability are not generally supported by the empirical evidence. The second paper ‘The Status of the Learning Disabled in Philosophy of Mind and Disability Studies’ by Maeve M. O’Donovan (College of Notre Dame of Maryland), approaches the subject of learning disability through personal and academic experience and research.

As well, as the ongoing ‘battle of the bands’ competition – plenty of time still to vote! – today also saw the first ‘winning comment’ prize awarded to Rebecca Wheeler.

by Paula Bowles

Welcome to the first day of the 2009 Compass Interdisciplinary Virtual Conference. Regenia Gagnier (University of Exeter) opened the conference by asking: ‘Why Interdisciplinarity?’ As part of her introductory remarks, Professor Gagnier discusses the definitions of Interdisciplinarity, as well as outlining some of the benefits of interdisciplinary research and praxis.

Roger Griffin’s (Oxford Brookes University) keynote paper: ‘The Rainbow Bridge’: Reflections on Interdisciplinarity in the Cybernetic Age’ highlights the opportunities offered by the novel concept of a virtual conference. By reflecting on his own research into fascism, Griffin recognises the need to make cross-disciplinary connections, or as he describes it academics operating ‘flexibly as both splitters and lumpers, according to the situation’.

Two other conference papers have been presented today. The first ‘Communicating about Communication – Multidisciplinary Approaches to Educating Educators about Language Variation’ by Anne H. Charity Hudley (The College of William and Mary) and Christine Mallinson (University of Maryland, Baltimore County) and the second
‘Language and Communication in the Spanish Conquest of America’ by Daniel Wasserman Soler(University of Virginia).

Finally, Professor of Human Geography, Mike Bradshaw (University of Leicester) has contributed a Publishing Workshop entitled ‘Why Write a Review Paper? And how to do it!’. As well as all of these academic gems, conference delegates have also taken the opportunity to meet the speakers in Second Life and cast their votes in the ‘Battle of the Bands’.

by Paula Bowles

Welcome to the first day of the 2009 Compass Interdisciplinary Virtual Conference. Regenia Gagnier (University of Exeter) opened the conference by asking: ‘Why Interdisciplinarity?’ As part of her introductory remarks, Professor Gagnier discusses the definitions of Interdisciplinarity, as well as outlining some of the benefits of interdisciplinary research and praxis.

Roger Griffin’s (Oxford Brookes University) keynote paper: ‘The Rainbow Bridge’: Reflections on Interdisciplinarity in the Cybernetic Age’ highlights the opportunities offered by the novel concept of a virtual conference. By reflecting on his own research into fascism, Griffin recognises the need to make cross-disciplinary connections, or as he describes it academics operating ‘flexibly as both splitters and lumpers, according to the situation’.

Two other conference papers have been presented today. The first ‘Communicating about Communication – Multidisciplinary Approaches to Educating Educators about Language Variation’ by Anne H. Charity Hudley (The College of William and Mary) and Christine Mallinson (University of Maryland, Baltimore County) and the second
‘Language and Communication in the Spanish Conquest of America’ by Daniel Wasserman Soler(University of Virginia).

Finally, Professor of Human Geography, Mike Bradshaw (University of Leicester) has contributed a Publishing Workshop entitled ‘Why Write a Review Paper? And how to do it!’. As well as all of these academic gems, conference delegates have also taken the opportunity to meet the speakers in Second Life and cast their votes in the ‘Battle of the Bands’.

We are delighted to announce that the program for the first ever Compass Interdisciplinary Virtual Conference is now available!

PDF DOWNLOADS:

Full Conference Program

‘At A Glance’ Conference Program – 1 Page

Conference paper abstracts and commentators

Author and Commentator Profiles

Keynote Speaker Profiles

In addition to the conference papers and keynote addresses, we will be offering a series of publishing workshops, ‘Meet the Keynote Speaker’ Q&A sessions, a book exhibit, musical entertainment and a SecondLife cocktail bar.

SOUNDS INTERESTING! HOW CAN I PARTICIPATE?

Join the conversation – we already have over 800 registered delegates from over 70 countries attending!

• Register for free at:
  http://www.blackwellpublishingsurvey.com/survey/149278/29a8.

• Delegates will be able to buy ANY Wiley book with a 20% conference discount.

• Delegates will be eligible for 60 days free online access to over 200 Wiley-Blackwell journals.

• Delegates providing feedback after the conference will also be in the running to win a year’s subscription to a Compass Journal of their choice!

We look forward to welcoming you to this inaugural virtual conference!

- The Compass Conference Team

Rochelle Lieber (Language and Linguistics Compass Editor-in-Chief)
Felice Lifshitz (History Compass Editor-in-Chief)
Jerry Suls (Social and Personality Psychology Compass Editor-in-Chief)
Vanessa Lafaye, Helen Ashton, Kivmars Bowling, Liam Cooper, Philip Smith (Wiley-Blackwell)

Questions? Feedback? Email: compassconference@wiley.com

We are delighted to announce that the program for the first ever Compass Interdisciplinary Virtual Conference is now available!

PDF DOWNLOADS:

Full Conference Program

‘At A Glance’ Conference Program – 1 Page

Conference paper abstracts and commentators

Author and Commentator Profiles

Keynote Speaker Profiles

In addition to the conference papers and keynote addresses, we will be offering a series of publishing workshops, ‘Meet the Keynote Speaker’ Q&A sessions, a book exhibit, musical entertainment and a SecondLife cocktail bar.

SOUNDS INTERESTING! HOW CAN I PARTICIPATE?

Join the conversation – we already have over 800 registered delegates from over 70 countries attending!

• Register for free at:
  http://www.blackwellpublishingsurvey.com/survey/149278/29a8.

• Delegates will be able to buy ANY Wiley book with a 20% conference discount.

• Delegates will be eligible for 60 days free online access to over 200 Wiley-Blackwell journals.

• Delegates providing feedback after the conference will also be in the running to win a year’s subscription to a Compass Journal of their choice!

We look forward to welcoming you to this inaugural virtual conference!

- The Compass Conference Team

Rochelle Lieber (Language and Linguistics Compass Editor-in-Chief)
Felice Lifshitz (History Compass Editor-in-Chief)
Jerry Suls (Social and Personality Psychology Compass Editor-in-Chief)
Vanessa Lafaye, Helen Ashton, Kivmars Bowling, Liam Cooper, Philip Smith (Wiley-Blackwell)

Questions? Feedback? Email: compassconference@wiley.com

Guest Post: Vivien Minton (University Of Plymouth)

Seminar invitation to Early Career Researchers to submit proposals to be included in a one day seminar, ‘As Others See Us’ on Saturday, 12 December 2009 at University of Exeter.

Deadline : Thursday, 15 October 2009.

As part of an AHRC funded research network that includes participants from the University of Plymouth (which is leading the network), the University of Exeter, Amherst College, and Simmons College in Boston MA, we would like invite a small number of early career researchers from literary studies, architecture and material culture, and art history to submit abstracts.

The purpose of the seminar is to explore ways in which we might re-evaluate the cultural interaction between Britain and New England 1600-1900 in a collection of essays.

The outcome will be a book proposal to put to Ashgate, who have expressed interest in this project. There will also be time set aside on the day to consider the international conference planned for Plymouth in July 2010, and to discuss the setting up of a UK Centre for New England studies. Contributors from the US and the UK will outline some of research resources available.

We invite new researchers to submit to Vivien Minton, Project Officer (vivien.minton@plymouth.ac.uk) the following as a Microsoft word attachment:
1. A three hundred word abstract of an essay relevant to the focus of this research network
2. A one page CV, including publications .

Please head your proposal ‘Seminar’.

Successful applicants will have their travelling expenses paid. In the event of there being more excellent proposals than we have space to include, we shall invite individuals to submit their proposals in response to the call for papers for the international Transatlantic Exchanges conference which we are arranging for July 2010 and for which an announcement will be made separately.

Many thanks,

Viv

Vivien Minton
Project Officer
Separateness and Kinship: Transatlantic Exchanges
Between Britain and New England, 1600-1900
University Of Plymouth
vivien.minton@plymouth.ac.uk

We are pleased to announce the following paper is to be presented at the upcoming Compass Interdisciplinary Virtual Conference (Oct 19-30):

Anne Charity Hudley (William & Mary) and Christine Mallinson (University of Maryland, Baltimore County)

Communicating about Communication: Multidisciplinary Approaches to Educating Educators about Language Variation’
“The quest to educate non-standardized English-speaking students has been a primary driving force behind developments in many fields represented by Compass journals, including sociology, geography, linguistics, psychology, history, literature, and education. Academics engaged in these multiple perspectives must join together, both to communicate knowledge about language variation to educators and to learn from educators’ experiences with teaching non-standardized English-speaking students.

Following the conference theme of breaking down barriers, we draw on research gathered from multidisciplinary approaches to educational analysis by developing a linguistic awareness model that is designed to facilitate the sharing of knowledge about language variation between educators and researchers. Our model currently addresses three U.S.-based English language varieties: School English, Southern English, and African-American English. Drawing on these models, we highlight best teaching practices that can help non-standardized English-speaking students break down communication barriers to educational success in the pre-collegiate classroom.

We draw on previous endeavors by academics to communicate information about language variation to wider audiences, noting two important challenges: the need to couple language variation awareness with readily accessible, specific examples of language variation and the need to provide information about how to work with language variation within the increasingly diverse classroom. We contend that only with this specific knowledge can educators use linguistic information to help students from non-standardized English-speaking backgrounds achieve in schools. Otherwise, educators may not appreciate the relevance and immediate necessity of the information.

In our linguistic awareness model, we suggest realistic, cost effective ways to approach educators, including certification and re-certification courses, in-service workshops, websites, and wikis. A wiki of materials to accompany this paper may be found athttp://charityhudleymallinsoncompass.wmwikis.net/. We also suggest future directions for linguistically aware educators to become resources for information on language variation and linguistic tolerance in their own schools and communities.”

If you would like to be informed when this paper goes live during the conference, please register for free here:

http://www.blackwellpublishingsurvey.com/survey/149278/29a8.

During the conference you will be able to access the full text and commissioned commentaries, with the opportunity to discuss and share your thoughts on the issues raised.

We are pleased to announce the following paper is to be presented at the upcoming Compass Interdisciplinary Virtual Conference (Oct 19-30):

Anne Charity Hudley (William & Mary) and Christine Mallinson (University of Maryland, Baltimore County)

Communicating about Communication: Multidisciplinary Approaches to Educating Educators about Language Variation’
“The quest to educate non-standardized English-speaking students has been a primary driving force behind developments in many fields represented by Compass journals, including sociology, geography, linguistics, psychology, history, literature, and education. Academics engaged in these multiple perspectives must join together, both to communicate knowledge about language variation to educators and to learn from educators’ experiences with teaching non-standardized English-speaking students.

Following the conference theme of breaking down barriers, we draw on research gathered from multidisciplinary approaches to educational analysis by developing a linguistic awareness model that is designed to facilitate the sharing of knowledge about language variation between educators and researchers. Our model currently addresses three U.S.-based English language varieties: School English, Southern English, and African-American English. Drawing on these models, we highlight best teaching practices that can help non-standardized English-speaking students break down communication barriers to educational success in the pre-collegiate classroom.

We draw on previous endeavors by academics to communicate information about language variation to wider audiences, noting two important challenges: the need to couple language variation awareness with readily accessible, specific examples of language variation and the need to provide information about how to work with language variation within the increasingly diverse classroom. We contend that only with this specific knowledge can educators use linguistic information to help students from non-standardized English-speaking backgrounds achieve in schools. Otherwise, educators may not appreciate the relevance and immediate necessity of the information.

In our linguistic awareness model, we suggest realistic, cost effective ways to approach educators, including certification and re-certification courses, in-service workshops, websites, and wikis. A wiki of materials to accompany this paper may be found athttp://charityhudleymallinsoncompass.wmwikis.net/. We also suggest future directions for linguistically aware educators to become resources for information on language variation and linguistic tolerance in their own schools and communities.”

If you would like to be informed when this paper goes live during the conference, please register for free here:

http://www.blackwellpublishingsurvey.com/survey/149278/29a8.

During the conference you will be able to access the full text and commissioned commentaries, with the opportunity to discuss and share your thoughts on the issues raised.

We are pleased to announce the following paper is to be presented at the upcoming Compass Interdisciplinary Virtual Conference (Oct 19-30):

Sheila Hones (University of Tokyo)

Text as It Happens: Literary Geography

“This article reviews the current situation in geographical work with fiction in the context of an explicitly spatial view of the writing–reading nexus as a contextualized and always emerging geographical event. It argues that this way of conceptualizing the text events of both narrative fiction and academic knowledge production provides a way of understanding and dealing with incompatible literary interpretations and also with irreconcilable approaches to literary geography. This openness to multiplicity develops from the point that text events are not only relational by nature and generated within social contexts in the initial encounter of author, text, and reader, but also only become publicly accessible when subsequently articulated within the mediating context of a particular social situation. The article proposes that literary geography as a collective endeavor can be developed and consolidated through an appreciation of the varying contexts within which geographically oriented work with fiction is performed and articulated.”

If you would like to be informed when this paper goes live during the conference, please register for free here:

http://www.blackwellpublishingsurvey.com/survey/149278/29a8.

During the conference you will be able to access the full text and commissioned commentaries, with the opportunity to discuss and share your thoughts on the issues raised.

We are pleased to announce the following paper is to be presented at the upcoming Compass Interdisciplinary Virtual Conference (Oct 19-30):

Sheila Hones (University of Tokyo)

Text as It Happens: Literary Geography

“This article reviews the current situation in geographical work with fiction in the context of an explicitly spatial view of the writing–reading nexus as a contextualized and always emerging geographical event. It argues that this way of conceptualizing the text events of both narrative fiction and academic knowledge production provides a way of understanding and dealing with incompatible literary interpretations and also with irreconcilable approaches to literary geography. This openness to multiplicity develops from the point that text events are not only relational by nature and generated within social contexts in the initial encounter of author, text, and reader, but also only become publicly accessible when subsequently articulated within the mediating context of a particular social situation. The article proposes that literary geography as a collective endeavor can be developed and consolidated through an appreciation of the varying contexts within which geographically oriented work with fiction is performed and articulated.”

If you would like to be informed when this paper goes live during the conference, please register for free here:

http://www.blackwellpublishingsurvey.com/survey/149278/29a8.

During the conference you will be able to access the full text and commissioned commentaries, with the opportunity to discuss and share your thoughts on the issues raised.

We are pleased to announce the following paper is to be presented at the upcoming Compass Interdisciplinary Virtual Conference (Oct 19-30):

Christine Mallinson (University of Maryland)

Sociolinguistics and Sociology: Current Directions, Future Partnerships

“In this article, I discuss the past, present, and future of interdisciplinary scholarship between sociolinguists and sociologists. After detailing some of the broader history of collaboration between sociolinguists and sociologists, I examine two sub-areas of scholarship: the variationist tradition from sociolinguistics and the social stratification tradition from sociology. I contend that, given their complementary research questions and analytic traditions, these areas provide new potential for interdisciplinary research initiatives. I give suggestions for research partnerships between sociolinguists and sociologists, and close with a discussion of some practical ways in which sociolinguists and sociologists can build interdisciplinarity both pedagogically as well as professionally.”

If you would like to be informed when this paper goes live during the conference, please register for free here:

http://www.blackwellpublishingsurvey.com/survey/149278/29a8.

During the conference you will be able to access the full text and commissioned commentaries, with the opportunity to discuss and share your thoughts on the issues raised.

We are pleased to announce the following paper is to be presented at the upcoming Compass Interdisciplinary Virtual Conference (Oct 19-30):

Christine Mallinson (University of Maryland)

Sociolinguistics and Sociology: Current Directions, Future Partnerships

“In this article, I discuss the past, present, and future of interdisciplinary scholarship between sociolinguists and sociologists. After detailing some of the broader history of collaboration between sociolinguists and sociologists, I examine two sub-areas of scholarship: the variationist tradition from sociolinguistics and the social stratification tradition from sociology. I contend that, given their complementary research questions and analytic traditions, these areas provide new potential for interdisciplinary research initiatives. I give suggestions for research partnerships between sociolinguists and sociologists, and close with a discussion of some practical ways in which sociolinguists and sociologists can build interdisciplinarity both pedagogically as well as professionally.”

If you would like to be informed when this paper goes live during the conference, please register for free here:

http://www.blackwellpublishingsurvey.com/survey/149278/29a8.

During the conference you will be able to access the full text and commissioned commentaries, with the opportunity to discuss and share your thoughts on the issues raised.

We are pleased to announce the following paper is to be presented at the upcoming Compass Interdisciplinary Virtual Conference (Oct 19-30):

‘Borderless World’: Globalization, Territory and Identity
Alexander Diener (Pepperdine University) and Joshua Hagen (Marshall University)

“Although declarations or predictions of a borderless world have become somewhat ubiquitous over the last twenty years, state borders remain one of the most basic and visible features of the international system. While it is true that a range of issues, like environmental change, migration, or international trade, highlight the growing interaction and interdependence between different places around the world, borders continue to play a central role in shaping, dividing, and uniting the world’s societies, economies, and ecosystems. Reflecting their significance for scholars across the social sciences, a growing body of multidisciplinary research has investigated the continuing power of borders in our supposedly borderless world. This article examines some of the main lines of inquiry, research, and theory in this emerging field of border studies.”

If you would like to be informed when this paper goes live during the conference, please register for free here:

http://www.blackwellpublishingsurvey.com/survey/149278/29a8.

During the conference you will be able to access the full text and commissioned commentaries, with the opportunity to discuss and share your thoughts on the issues raised.

We are pleased to announce the following paper is to be presented at the upcoming Compass Interdisciplinary Virtual Conference (Oct 19-30):

‘Borderless World’: Globalization, Territory and Identity
Alexander Diener (Pepperdine University) and Joshua Hagen (Marshall University)

“Although declarations or predictions of a borderless world have become somewhat ubiquitous over the last twenty years, state borders remain one of the most basic and visible features of the international system. While it is true that a range of issues, like environmental change, migration, or international trade, highlight the growing interaction and interdependence between different places around the world, borders continue to play a central role in shaping, dividing, and uniting the world’s societies, economies, and ecosystems. Reflecting their significance for scholars across the social sciences, a growing body of multidisciplinary research has investigated the continuing power of borders in our supposedly borderless world. This article examines some of the main lines of inquiry, research, and theory in this emerging field of border studies.”

If you would like to be informed when this paper goes live during the conference, please register for free here:

http://www.blackwellpublishingsurvey.com/survey/149278/29a8.

During the conference you will be able to access the full text and commissioned commentaries, with the opportunity to discuss and share your thoughts on the issues raised.

Many thanks to all those of you who have already registered for the upcoming Compass Interdisciplinary Virtual Conference. We’ve very excited to see so many delegates from around the world and look forward to a truly global conversation during the conference.

Why register?

The conference website will of course be free and open to all, but registrants will receive a Virtual Delegates Pack, which will include the full conference schedule, details of the discounts available on Wiley-Blackwell publications as part of our book exhibit, our new Online Author’s Survival Guide and much more.

To register, simply click here:
http://www.blackwellpublishingsurvey.com/survey/149278/29a8

To see the global spread of registrants on our Virtual Conference Google Map, just click here. Judging from the feedback we’re receiving, many of you are looking forward to participating in this online conference, as travel to a face-to-face event would be much more difficult (and less green!).

We’d encourage you to spread the word about the conference amongst your friends and colleagues. You can of course direct people to
http://compassconference.wordpress.com or also to our Twitter feed at http://twitter.com/CompassConf.

Many thanks to all those of you who have already registered for the upcoming Compass Interdisciplinary Virtual Conference. We’ve very excited to see so many delegates from around the world and look forward to a truly global conversation during the conference.

Why register?

The conference website will of course be free and open to all, but registrants will receive a Virtual Delegates Pack, which will include the full conference schedule, details of the discounts available on Wiley-Blackwell publications as part of our book exhibit, our new Online Author’s Survival Guide and much more.

To register, simply click here:
http://www.blackwellpublishingsurvey.com/survey/149278/29a8

To see the global spread of registrants on our Virtual Conference Google Map, just click here. Judging from the feedback we’re receiving, many of you are looking forward to participating in this online conference, as travel to a face-to-face event would be much more difficult (and less green!).

We’d encourage you to spread the word about the conference amongst your friends and colleagues. You can of course direct people to
http://compassconference.wordpress.com or also to our Twitter feed at http://twitter.com/CompassConf.

Guest Post: Beth Penney (Monterey Peninsula College)

The 29th annual Dickens Universe was held at Kresge College at UC Santa Cruz August 1 through 8, 2009. More than 200 people attended to discuss David Copperfield: approximately 40 faculty members, 50 graduate students, and 120 members of the public. The Universe has worked with David Copperfield twice before: in 1983 and in 1997, when the novel was paired with Pride and Prejudice.

Many of the discussions throughout the week tried to answer the question posed in the novel’s first sentence: Who, indeed, is the hero of David Copperfield’s life? Is it David, or is it one of the other characters? Or is it David’s creator, Charles Dickens? Meanwhile, the Dickens Universe itself is searching for a “hero,” as the University of California has responded to state budget cuts by cutting off all funding to the Dickens Project, which presents the Universe and a number of other events throughout the year. If the Universe is to continue, it will have to raise money from other venues, through either grants or donations from its participants, or both.

For many years, a separate weekend conference was held immediately following the Universe, with a different set of speakers and a Victorian studies topic related to the Universe’s selected novel for the year. In recent years, that conference was changed to a symposium, and it was further changed this year to what has been christened a “Collaboratory,” a new format that allows scholars who are members of schools that participate in the Dickens Project consortium to share their ongoing work. Three new schools have recently joined that consortium: Royal Holloway University of London, the University of New England in Australia, and the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

Faculty and graduate students arrived in Santa Cruz on Saturday afternoon for dinner and orientation, and began their seminars and other meetings on Sunday morning. On Sunday afternoon general participants began to arrive, and one important event was the 3:00 meeting of the board of directors of the Friends of the Dickens Project, a group that takes the challenge of fundraising to ensure the future of the Universe seriously.

On Sunday evening, the first lecture of the week was presented as Bob Patten, currently on sabbatical from Rice University, presented “Higgledy-Piggledy: Illustration, Memory, and Text in David Copperfield.” This lecture set the tone for the week as it focused on the novel’s illustrations, often seen, Patten said, as “auxiliary” to the text. Hablot K. Browne (“Phiz”) did 41 drawings for David Copperfield, and modern editions often include only up to eight of those. (The edition recommended to Universe participant was the latest Penguin Classics paperback edition, which contains all of the illustrations.) However, Patten argued, Dickens meant Phiz’s drawings to be “integral parts of a composite project.” While authors such as Henry James considered illustrations competition with their writing, Dickens, Patten said, saw the pictures and text as what today would be considered a “multimedia production.” In fact, Patten argued, some of the pictures give the reader insight into how David’s childhood memories have been filtered though the narrator’s adult “psychic screen.” The picture titled “I return to the Doctor’s after the party” (below), which shows young David almost as an intruder, at the side, witnessing the young Annie’s confession to her older husband, is an example. The young David cannot know, Patten said, what he is seeing. Thus the illustration, like others in the novel, may offer the reader a view of the story that is not actually related in the text. The picture titled “Our pew at church” (right), for example, may contain a grown David in the foreground, creating a scene the very young David would obviously never have seen. After the evening lectures, film versions of David Copperfield were screened: 1935, directed by George Cukor, and the 1999 BBC version.

On Monday morning the week got underway, with 8:30 sessions led by five faculty members: Tricia Lootens of the University of Georgia; Gerhard Joseph of Lehman College, CUNY; Jeffrey Spear of NYU, and the team of Elizabeth Hale and Jennifer McDonnell of the University of New England in New South Wales, Australia. We were happy to be included in Gerhard Joseph’s group, which spent the week discussing character, gender, shame, guilt, and other concepts as related to the novel, its main character, and its narrator.

After a break for coffee, the Monday morning lecture was preceded by the introduction of the two high school essay-contest winners, Larissa Walder of West High School in Madison, Wisconsin, and Ben Gittleson of Henry W. Grady High School in Atlanta, Georgia. Each year, two high school students are selected based on their essays, and the students and their instructors win a trip to the Dickens Universe. Ben Gittleson’s instructor, Scott Stephens, is a returnee, having had a student win the contest in 2007. Amy Keyes, Larissa Walder’s instructor, now resides in Santa Cruz and was on hand for the week. The high school scholarships are made possible by donors Anne Bay and her family, and by Rivkah Yerushalmi. These exceptional student essays are available for your perusal at http://dickens.ucsc.edu/high_school/highschool_archive.html.

Monday morning’s 9:45 lecture was delivered by Rob Polhemus of Stanford University and offered a thesis that was debated throughout the week. Moving from the starting point of the week’s discussion of illustration and other peripheries to the novel itself, Polhemus took the conversation a step further and argued that Victorian artist Richard Dadd had David Copperfield in mind when he painted his nine-year project titled “The Fairy Feller’s Master-Stroke,” now at the Tate Gallery in London, from 1855 to 1864. Dadd was a patient at Bethlem Royal Hospital, or Bedlam, at the time he painted the work, having been committed for murdering his father. Polhemus cited the copper-colored field studded with daisies on which the intricate painting is set, and he identified several of the small fairy-like figures on the canvas as characters in the novel, most specifically Mr. Dick, who accounts for the other half of Polhemus’s argument. His paper was titled “Dickens’s Master Stroke: David Copperfield, The Tower of Babley, and the ‘Fairy Feller,’” and he focused on Mr. Dick’s real name, Mr. Richard Babley, as a connection to another work of art, Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s Renaissance work, “The Tower of Babel.” A text like David Copperfield, Polhemus argued, “has no end of meanings,” and no other novel “ties its dialogue so blatantly and exuberantly to the Babel effect”; witness the dialogue of Micawber, Uriah, Dora, and others. It is, Polhemus said, both a Tower of Babel story and a fairy story.

Afternoon Activities

After the morning lectures, attendees broke into hour-long workshops led by graduate students. After lunch, conference afternoons offered a rich variety of activities: high school teachers’ workshops, faculty-led graduate student seminars, and seminars for non-affiliated scholars. These groups broke for a Victorian Tea each afternoon at 3:00. The teas, sponsored by the Friends of the Dickens Project, offered hot, freshly brewed Earl Grey tea and a ginger-tea punch, real china teacups, a silver tea service, and homemade cookies. Always a popular event, the teas this year served an important function in making the Friends of the Dickens Project, and their task of raising money to support the Project, visible.

After tea, various faculty members presented talks. These talks offer a forum for papers and ideas that are related to Dickens or Victorian literature but not geared to the year’s novel. This year’s afternoon talks covered a variety of topics. Monday afternoon’s talk, “The Other Side of the Dickensian Child: The Split Child Figures of the Late Forties,” was delivered by Galia Benziman of UCSC. On Tuesday, Dickens Project Founding Director Murray Baumgarten, who also, with Peter Kenez, holds the Neufeld-Levin Chair in Holocaust Studies and is Co-Director of the Center for Jewish Studies at UCSC, spoke on “Neither Exile Nor Homeland: Inventing English Jewish Writing and Culture.” On Wednesday, Maria Cristina Paganoni of the University of Milan delivered a paper titled, “Fiction as Cyberspace, Cyberspace as Fiction: Dickens and New Media.” Graduate student presentation and pedagogy workshops were also held in the afternoons.

On Monday evening, Universe souvenirs in the form of T-shirts, books, and sundries were offered for sale outside the Kresge Town Hall while attendees enjoyed post-prandial potations served by graduate students and perused the silent auction items offered by the Friends of the Dickens Project as part of its fundraising campaign. To start the evening’s proceedings, John Jordan announced that the Project Faculty would match up to $30,000 in donations made during Universe week (the estimated cost to keep the Project running without university funds is $60,000 per year). UCSC’s Dean of Humanities George Van Den Abbeele and Chancellor George Blumenthal visited Kresge Town Hall Monday evening, and Van Den Abbeele spoke briefly to attendees, pledging his support of what he called a “high quality program” and saying that his office is “planning to do what we can on our end to make this happen, and we will make it happen.”

The Geography of the Novel

Monday evening’s speaker, Rosemarie Bodenheimer of Boston College, unfortunately could not attend the Universe, so her paper, titled “Copperfield’s Geographies,” was presented by Carolyn Williams of Rutgers University. Bodenheimer continued the week’s theme of discussing elements surrounding the novel by exploring the geography of David Copperfield, a topic in her new book about Dickensian London. Her paper pointed out that although David Copperfield largely takes place in Yarmouth, Canterbury, and Highgate, without the “urban vision” present in novels such as Dombey and Son and Bleak House, the young David never seems lost when he is in London; he is never in real danger. In fact the novel makes fun of the city’s dangers in Aunt Betsey’s fear of it. Also, Bodenheimer has mapped David’s geographic movements and compared them to those of the Dickens family itself. David “moves gradually toward his personal memory sites as the novel proceeds,” she said. As David’s story moves him upward and away from painful memories, Dickens himself moves back into the past. For example, Bodenheimer said, the Micawbers’ residence just before they sail for Australia is the site of the blacking factory where Dickens worked as a child. David’s family ends up, as did Dickens’s family, in a London household.

Tuesday morning’s speaker was Andrew Miller of Indiana University, with a paper titled “Not Forthcoming,” a reference to David’s sister, the unborn Betsey Trotwood Copperfield. This novel, Miller said, is “crowded with characters not present”—the dead, the imagined. Thus David Copperfield is designed “to evoke and understand these lives we have not led,” Miller said. Marriage is one version of these “unrealized possibilities,” in Ham and Emily, David Sr. and Clara Copperfield, Annie and Jack. “Only by acknowledging that another marriage might have been possible can Annie explain to her husband,” Miller said. Individual identity is something else that is potentially “not forthcoming.” At the “sides” of any life, he said, is everything that did not happen to us, that we did not do. Thus this narrative is one of uncertain identity, even from the opening sentence. These questions about what is not forthcoming in the novel all bear on the readers’ experience, unifying characters and readers.

After the morning speaker, Tuesday’s events proceeded as before, with graduate student workshops, lunch at College Eight, the variety of meetings following lunch, then the Victorian Teas and the afternoon talk. The Santa Cruz weather was cooler than usual, with some autumn-like winds in the redwoods. On Tuesday evening, Leah Price of Harvard University gave a talk she said had won the faculty prize for the shortest paper title: “Speed.” Another work that explored elements that surround the novel, Price’s paper focused on the function of stenography, reading, and writing in the novel and in the Victorian era. Lecturing and note taking, she said, create a very old, common scene, being replicated in the Kresge Town Hall as she spoke. She noted Dickens’s own distance from taking notes as a court reporter to having others take notes on what he said as a lecturer. In addition, Dickens’s books, including David Copperfield, were used in several shorthand textbooks, some of which Price displayed. Given the fascination with taking and reading notes, however, the “self-made reader,” she said, is a Victorian myth. Although books, paper, and writing exist in the novel, reading is not at the forefront in David Copperfield. The Murdstones, for example, handle rather than read books; the Micawbers destroy David’s innocence by forcing him to find out what books, like the ones belonging to his father, are really worth.

Time and Tenses

Wednesday morning’s speaker was Rebecca Stern of the University of South Carolina, and she spoke on “David Copperfield’s Times.” She noted that the preface to David Copperfield is one of the shortest in the canon; Dickens says only that he is not far enough away from the book to write the preface. David himself is posthumous as well as premature, a contradiction in tenses, as it were. And past, present, and future are mixed in paragraphs and episodes throughout the novel, Stern said. David resolves immediately not to meander, but his “narrative control is endangered by memory.” His recollection of the fowls in the yard at his mother’s home is in the present tense; the scene where, in his drunken state, he sees Agnes at the theater in London, uses the present participle: “Agnes, sitting on the seat before me…”. These are examples of what Stern called “seasick grammars,” which take place throughout the book. The “structure of regret” is also present in the novel, she said, using retrospective emotion to color memory. This structural prolepsis, she argued, “invites the mind to work in two directions at once.”

As has been the practice in recent years, Wednesday evening was kept free so that attendees could choose to go to the nearby Shakespeare Santa Cruz productions; however, Julius Caesar, in the indoor theater, was sold out, and it was just too windy to go to A Midsummer Night’s Dream in the outdoor theater. Post-prandial potations and the fundraising silent auction went on as usual, and the evening’s movie started early.

David on the Stage

Thursday morning’s lecture was given by Marty Gould of the University of South Florida on “Copperfield, the Stage Sensation.” This was a fascinating exploration of the numerous theatrical versions of David Copperfield that popped up immediately following the completed version of the novel. Not surprisingly, dramatizations could not encompass the entire story, so they selected parts of it. Play titles reflected this, many of them focusing on Little Emily’s story. One version concludes with Ham and Steerforth miraculously alive, and Steerforth married to Emily. “To be dramatized,” Gould said, “David had to be de-traumatized.” In fact, in the 1870s and beyond, Emily became the focus of the plays; in some, David is barely present. The reason for this, Gould explained, is that Emily’s story is where the drama is. In the novel, the reader does not see the seduction of Emily, but it is what fascinated Victorian viewers. In addition, the idea of emigrating to Australia was uppermost in Victorian theatergoers’ minds; several of the plays end with the sailing of the ship to Australia. Gould presented pieces of dialogue from the various plays—those that focus on the Peggotty family, those that focus on the Micawbers, and so on. This talk served as a wonderful introduction to the afternoon’s presentation, a reading of a play by John Brougham, who adapted five of Dickens’s novels to the stage.

“Every Man Must Have a Kite” was presented in readers’ theater format in the Kresge Town Hall by the Peggotty Players after the teas on Thursday afternoon. Adapted and directed by John Glavin of Georgetown University, the play featured eleven Universe attendees, including Tim Clark as Mr. Micawber, Camille Campbell as Uriah Heep, and Laurie Lober-Tracy as Mr. Dick. “Every Man Must Have a Kite” was first performed at Brougham’s Lyceum on January 6, 1851, and while the Universe version was, in its director’s words, “very curtailed,” it nevertheless featured a dance by Mr. and Mrs. Micawber, a redheaded Heep, Mr. Dick’s kite (decorated with 20th-century cartoon “heroes”), and a Chorus of Donkeys. This version focused on the Wickfield-Heep story, with Mr. Micawber as the hero, as he was in several of the Victorian dramatizations.

Thursday evening brought a paper by John Bowen of the University of York, “A Mort of Talk.” In Chapter 32, after Emily’s departure with Steerforth has been discovered, Mr. Peggotty says to David, “We have had a mort of talk, sir, of what we ought and doen’t ought to do.” A “mort,” Bowen explained, is Suffolk dialect for “a large quantity,” but it also has the meaning of a harlot, or prostitute, according to the OED. And, of course, there is the morpheme’s meaning of “death.” All three of these meanings come together in the scene and in the novel, Bowen argued. “Like Traddles’ drawings, David Copperfield is covered with skeletons,” he said. “The novel smells dreadfully of ruin.” And, oddly, both the word’s meaning of death and the meaning of “a large quantity” are bound together in Micawber, of whom G.K. Chesterton said, “We can only walk round and round him wondering what to say.”

After the Thursday evening lecture, the films were not shown in favor of attendance at the Grand Party, hosted by the Friends of the Dickens Project. This party always features wine and cheese, cakes, fruits, and other delicacies, put together this year by Beverly and Clay Ballard, with help from Barbara Keller and Dan Atwood.

“Tempest”

On Friday morning, Project Director John Jordan of UCSC presented his much-anticipated paper, “Tempest.” He was introduced by Teresa Mangum of the University of Iowa, coordinator of this year’s speakers, who said John is “a master of collaboration, bringing people together to do wonderful things.” The unique experience of presenting hour-long papers to a room full of scholars and non-specialists has transformed the writing of faculty members who have participated in the Dickens Universe, Mangum said, and “this visionary plan is simply extraordinary.” The attendees packed into the Town Hall responded with a standing ovation for John, which he received in his characteristic selfless manner, quieting the applause and saying he needed the time to present his paper.

Jordan started out by saying, “I don’t much like David Copperfield,” and he thinks Dickens didn’t either. He quickly clarified that he doesn’t like David, the novel’s narrator. Although Dickens as a novelist is a hero, Jordan is not sure David is; we don’t know what kind of novels he writes. He admires himself and thinks he is the hero, but he doesn’t act like one. He betrays his working class friends to side with upper class friends, Jordan said, adding that there are clues in the novel to David’s “complicity and self-deception.” Both Steerforth and David are responsible for what happens to Emily. Yet Dickens allows David to succeed while exposing his “ethical failure.”

The second part of Jordan’s talk addressed the paper’s title, which refers to the storm that takes Steerforth’s, and Ham’s, life. The chapter in the novel that contains this event, Jordan said, is “one of its finest achievements.” The sea in David Copperfield, while not as obviously symbolic as in Dombey and Son, is nonetheless present from the beginning, in David’s caul, which is supposed to protect its owner from drowning. The wind at David’s childhood home in Blunderstone foreshadows the storm, and David even says of Emily, in Chapter 3, “There has been a time since—I do not say it lasted long, but it has been—when I have asked myself the question, would it have been better for little Em’ly to have had the waters close above her head that morning in my sight; and when I have answered Yes, it would have been.” Is this, Jordan posited, a fantasy, on David’s part, of drowning Emily? Jordan went on to dissect David’s memory of the storm , which starts with his statement, “I do not recall it but see it done.” The shipwreck represents, Jordan said, a “turning outward of David’s internal crisis.” Although he can “see” the wreck, he cannot see Emily: “But Emily I never saw.” Jordan even goes so far to argue that at the very end of the novel, it is Steerforth, not Agnes, that is the “dear presence” beside David. “Oh Agnes, my soul, so may thy face be by me when I close my life indeed” should be read, “so may thy face be by me,” instead of the other face. The Peggotty family, Jordan feels, is the hero of this book, and “David is a duplicitous narrator, blind in more ways than one.”

On Friday afternoon the Collaboratory started, with Faculty Research in Progress roundtables, the first featuring Jonathan Grossman of UCLA; John Jordan of UCSC; John Bowen of the University of York; and Hilary Schor of USC. Later that afternoon, attendees gathered for a special “Partings Welded Together: A Celebration of Our Friend Sally Ledger.” Ledger, a professor at Royal Holloway University of London and a much-loved member of the Project faculty, died in January of this year of a brain hemorrhage, and her friendship and her contributions to the Project will be missed.

Friday evening saw the farewell festivities for most Universe attendees. After the usual post-prandial potations, auctioneer Dan Atwell worked his magic at the Friends auction; the money raised at this auction and the silent auctions each evening throughout the week is part of the total that the faculty members promise to match. After the auction, John announced the books for 2010: Oliver Twist and Sketches by Boz. At 8:30, the Victorian Ball swung into action in the Kresge Town Hall with dance instructor Angela Elsey and the local musicians of the Brassworks Band.

On Saturday the Collaboratory continued, with a morning panel titled “A Roundtable on 19th Century Poetry” featuring Margaret Loose of the University of California at San Diego and Catherine Robson of UC Davis. The afternoon Collaboratory panel was titled “A Roundtable on Visual Cultures,” and it featured Luisa Cale of Birkbeck College, University of London; Bob Patten of Rice University; Rachel Teukolsky of Vanderbilt University; and Sharon Weltman of Louisiana State University.

We Need Your Help

In an open letter to this year’s attendees included in the packets received at registration for the Universe, Director John Jordan, Co-founder Ed Eigner, and Founding Director Murray Baumgarten announced that UC funding for the Dickens Project has ended and asked for financial support from those who have experienced and participated in the Project. The letter reads as follows:

“The economic crisis sweeping through California has stuck the Dickens Project. The UC Office of the President has notified us recently that UC funding for the Project will end, effective July 1, 2009—in other words, immediately. We are writing to you as someone who has experienced and participated in the Dickens Project and knows firsthand what we are all about.

“With luck and belt-tightening, we may have enough carry-forward money to continue operating for another year, but in order to survive beyond that time, we need the help of our friends, alumni, faculty, and other supporters.

“The Project’s annual Dickens Universe gathering is a unique event that brings together scholars, teachers, graduate students, undergraduates, high school students, and members of the general public. For 29 years, the Dickens Project has been the principal center for teaching and research on Dickens in North America. The Project has grown from its modest beginnings as a UC research group to its current size of 36 universities around the world. It has been a leader in graduate training and an innovative example of continuing education in the humanities. Its elimination would be a great loss to anyone who, like you, cares about Dickens, Victorian culture, or the role of great literature in our lives.

“We three—Ed, Murray, and John—were the original founders of the Project. We are proud of what it has accomplished: the careers it has helped launch, the friendships it has nurtured, and research it has fostered, the example of collegiality across age, background, and profession that it has sustained. We do not intend for the Project to close up shop.

“What you can do now for the Project is to give us money. Even a small contribution will help. In the short term, we need to demonstrate to the university administration that the Dickens Project has a broad base of support. In the long term, we will be applying to private and public foundations for assistance, including a Challenge Grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities that would bring us matching funds and help build our endowment. We will also be looking for private donors who can help us with substantial endowment gifts.

“The easiest way for you to donate money is by credit card on the secure UCSC Foundation page (indicate Dickens Project as your area of interest). For instructions, go to the Dickens Project web site: http://dickens.ucsc.edu. You can also write a check, made out to UCSC Foundation (with a notation that it is for the Dickens Project), and send it to us at 1156 High Street. Thank you for any help you can give.”

Con-sider our commentary a love-driven constellation, a double star (binary or optical?) gravitationally caught within these motions, like the subtle turnings of an ungraspable celestial tress.
–Anna Klosowska and Nicola Masciandaro, “Beyond the Sphere”

Over at the medieval studies weblog In The Middle, we’ve been having some vigorous discussions about oceanic and new critical modes for our scholarship, and in relation to one of our anonymous commenter’s questions to me in the thread to one of those posts [referenced above], after I had argued for the widest possible venues for the greatest variety of scholarly modes [and which question I actually think is critically important and worth returning to with renewed earnestness and care], and also returning, as I often do, to the cautions of the graduate student blogger Jonathan Jarrett that, while I [or we] may want a super-abundance of scholarly modes, styles, etc., there are, in the end, financial constraints and only so many jobs [many conventionally defined] and so on, and here then is the question posed to me:

eileen, can you, do you really believe in a world of such infinity, such unlimitedness? it seems to me a world of fantasy, and not necessarily a desirable one. as one of the readers that irina so eloquently describes as needing “generosity” for reasons that i believe are good but that i will keep to myself, this desire for ever-overflowing, ever-proliferating new discourses seems overwhelming.

Oh yes, it is overwhelming, even for me [I don't sleep much--ask my friends], but I can only say again that I do believe in this world, yes, but with the caveat that those of us who desire to enlarge the fields within which we work and play, and to create new modes and styles of scholarship, new ways of doing things and of being together [affectively] in this new work we do [and for me, especially, if we care enough to help create financially sustainable spaces within which more of us can have gainful employment doing the work we simply can't stop ourselves from doing and therefore hopefully avoid the despair of being shut out of a profession that simply doesn't have room, supposedly, for "everything"], then some of us are going to have to commit ourselves to doing more than just our individual scholarship and teaching and also think of “service” to our profession as something that extends beyond our institutions to embrace the future of the field itself. We will create and have created working groups [Babel Working Group], institutes dedicated to cutting-edge cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary scholarly exchange and learning [GW-MEMSI], journals that bring the Middle Ages and modernity into productive contact [postmedieval], journals that combine poetic and theoretical writing modes [Whiskey and Fox], and special journal issues and essay collections that highlight the kind of “new” work we want to do [Fragments Toward a History of Vanishing Humanism], and we must also work within our institutions for innovative curricular reforms that both protect what might be called traditional premodern studies while also expanding the role of what medieval studies can do within a more richly-imagined cross-temporal curriculum, at both the undergraduate and graduate level [I and my colleagues have done this within the English department at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. where we set in motion this semester a brand-new B.A. in English program that actually strengthens the position of medieval and early modern studies while also insisting that periodicity, as well as certain canonical "giants" such as Chaucer, Milton, and Shakespeare, no longer serve as the primary edifices within which certain texts are taught and required].

Let’s celebrate, then, too, some of this dedication and vision [and unpaid labor] that has gone into creating new spaces for work in our field that aims to be creative, nomadic, multi-voiced, unconventional, affective, pluralistic, lyric-experimental, and felicitous in its movements across periods, geographies, and genres. Let’s celebrate, especially, today, the unveiling of the inaugural issue of the open-access, online journal Glossator: Practice and Theory of the Commentary, the brain- and love-child of Nicola Masciandaro, Karl Steel, and Ryan Dobran:

Glossator: Practice and Theory of the Commentary, vol. 1 (2009)

The editors of Glossator describe the mission of the journal this way:

Glossator publishes original commentaries, editions and translations of commentaries, and essays and articles relating to the theory and history of commentary, glossing, and marginalia (catena, commentum, gemara, glossa, hypomnema, midrash, peser, pingdian, scholia, tafsir, talkhis, tika, vritti, zend, zhangju, et al). The journal aims to encourage the practice of commentary as a creative form of intellectual work and to provide a forum for dialogue and reflection on the past, present, and future of this ancient genre of writing. By aligning itself, not with any particular discipline, but with a particular mode of production, Glossator gives expression to the fact that praxis founds theory.

The first issue is exciting and includes work by some who are medievalists, some not, and some poets, too [and just look at the felicitous and lyric range of subjects!]:

• BENJAMIN AT THE BARRICADES: THE ARCADES PROJECT AS COMBAT AND INTRIGUE Erik Butler
• RAYMOND ROUSSEL’S SELF HELP NOTES (A COMMENTARY ON BOB PERELMAN’S “CHRONIC MEANINGS”) Alan Ramon Clinton
• THE SOVEREIGN EXCEPTION: NOTES ON SCHMITT’S WORD THAT SOVEREIGN IS HE WHO DECIDES ON THE EXCEPTION Bruno Gulli
• PERIPHERY AND PURPOSE: THE FIFTEENTH-CENTURY RUBRICATION OF THE PILGRIMAGE OF HUMAN LIFE Stephanie A. Viereck Gibbs Kamath
• BEYOND THE SPHERE: A DIALOGIC COMMENTARY ON THE ULTIMATE SONETTO OF DANTE’S VITA NUOVA Anna Klosowska, Nicola Masciandaro
• TINTERN ABBEY, ONCE AGAIN J. H. Prynne
• NEW WORK: A PROSIMETRUM Daniel C. Remein
• PRELUDE TO A READING OF ARISTOTLE’S METAPHYSICS: BETA 1, PARAGRAPH ONE Adam Rosen
• A COMMENTARY ON THERESA HAK KYUNG CHA’S DICTÉE Michael Stone-Richards

Directly related to our conversations here about new critical modes, Daniel Remein describes his essay this way:

This work consists of new poems and commentary in the tradition of Dante’s prosimetric self-commentary. It aims to explore the shared ground of poetry and commentary, and the potential symbiotic and generative relationships between the two modes. The work proposes the elaboration of at least three particular formal poetic structures—which it names the ‘riddle,’ the ‘missive,’ and the ‘miniature romance’—, cites moments from a broad range of medieval, modern, and contemporary literary history, and attempts to provoke a poetics of both poem and commentary that might help generate a more politically salient concept of literary community.

And here is the abstract for Anna Klosowska and Nicola Masciandaro’s essay:

Revolutions: The turning movement through the images of this sonetto involves several eddying, (micro)cosmic motions. We begin already beyond the widest sphere, then penetrate it from this side via love’s weeping in a motion that is virtually re-initiated from the heart in a kind of syntactic time-warp. Then comes the thought-sigh’s arrival before the lady and its getting lost in the epicycles of honor and splendor and gazing. Then his subtle retelling of the gaze caused by a secondary motion of the heart that first moved it. Then the mystical understanding of the pensero’s unintelligible speech through the apophatic anamnesis of the beloved’s name. Finally, a gracious love-boast gently expanding towards those who have understanding of love. Con-sider our commentary a love-driven constellation, a double star (binary or optical?) gravitationally caught within these motions, like the subtle turnings of an ungraspable celestial tress.

Well? What are you waiting for? Start reading! And whatever you do, enjoy yourself.

The Journal of American History has published an excellent discussion entitled ‘Interchange: The Promise of Digital History‘:

This “Interchange” discussion took place online over the course of several months in the winter of 2008. We wanted the “Interchange” to be free flowing; therefore we encouraged participants not only to respond to questions posed by the JAH but also to communicate with each other directly. What follows is an edited version of the very lively online conversation that resulted. We hope JAH readers find it of interest.

The participants:

Daniel J. Cohen is associate professor of history and director of the Center for History and New Media (chnm) at George Mason University.

Michael Frisch is professor of history and American studies and a senior research scholar at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York.

Patrick Gallagher is a leader in the field of exhibit design. He is principal of Gallagher & Associates, a professional design services firm.

Steven Mintz is director of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Teaching Center at Columbia University.

Kirsten Sword is assistant professor of history at Indiana University.

Amy Murrell Taylor is associate professor of history and an affiliate faculty member in the documentary studies program at the State University of New York (suny)–Albany.

William G. Thomas III, professor of history at the University of Nebraska, holds the John and Catherine Angle Chair in the Humanities.

William J. Turkel is assistant professor of history at the University of Western Ontario and director of digital infrastructure for the Network in Canadian History and Environment.

Some of the questions tackled:

How might we define digital history?

What is the promise of digital history?

How do we teach graduate students about digital history?

What are the essential skills in training a generation of digital historians?

What institutional resources are needed to sustain digital history?

Do digital history and museum exhibitions have something in common?

Does digital presentation lend a depth that does something text and photographs in a book can’t do?

How has technology changed your research methods? How could it?

What would you like to see technology do in your own research?

What is the role of journals (or academic publishing more broadly) in these new projects? How might journals embrace such projects?

How might digital history change the publication and dissemination of scholarship?

Looking forward five or ten years, how will the profession be different? How will the discipline be different? What changes will institutions have to make?

The March issue of History Compass is now available here!

Here is a keyword stream for this issue:

African Languages, Global English, Education in Colonial India, Transnational Labour History, Museum Studies in New Zealand, Honor and High Politics in Early Modern Ireland, History of Women in Scotland, Occupation of Germany in 1945, Family, the State, and Law, History of Science and Technology in Latin America, Arabic and Persian Mirrors for Princes Genre, Australian Historians and the Great War, Afghanistan Historiography and Pashtun Islam.

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HISTORY COMPASS
Issue: March 2009

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Africa

African Languages in the World of Global English (p 343-362)
Ângela Lamas Rodrigues

Asia

Education for All: Reassessing the Historiography of Education in Colonial India (p 363-375)
Catriona Ellis

Australasia & Pacific

Reflections on Writing Comparative and Transnational Labour History (p 376-394)
James Bennett

Museums and Museum Studies in New Zealand: A Survey of Historical Developments (p 395-413)
Conal McCarthy, Joanna Cobley

Britain & Ireland

From Irish Eineach to British Honor? Noble Honor and High Politics in Early Modern Ireland, 1500–1650 (p 414-430)
Brendan Kane

A New Trumpet? The History of Women in Scotland 1300–1700 (p 431-446)
Elizabeth Ewan

Europe

The Occupation of Germany in 1945 and the Politics of German History (p 447-473)
Gareth Pritchard

Family, the State, and Law in Early Modern and Revolutionary France (p 474-499)
Matthew Gerber

Caribbean & Latin America

Constructing a Narrative: The History of Science and Technology in Latin America (p 500-522)
María Portuondo

Middle & Near East

Surveying Recent Literature on the Arabic and Persian Mirrors for Princes Genre (p 523-538)
L. Marlow

Teaching & Learning Guides

Teaching & Learning Guide for: Whose War Was It Anyway? Some Australian Historians and the Great War (p 539-547)
Frank Bongiorno, Grant Mansfield

Teaching & Learning Guide for: Afghanistan Historiography and Pashtun Islam: Modernization Theory’s Afterimage (p 548-553)
James Caron

The first Compass Interdisciplinary Virtual Conference, to be held in October 2009, aims to help break academic boundaries – within and between disciplines, between theory and practice, approaches and methodologies – by providing a space for multi- and cross-disciplinary review on the theme of “Breaking Down Barriers“.

Abstracts are invited for survey/review papers from the disciplines of History, Literature, Philosophy, Religion, Geography, Linguistics, Sociology, and Social Psychology.

In particular, we welcome papers that explore:

Paradigms | Borders | The Environment | Communication | Justice/Human Rights

Abstract submission deadline: 1 January 2009
An Abstract submission template is available here.
Send to compassconference@wiley.com.

Registration Is free! Click here to register
Join the largest online meeting of minds in the social sciences and humanities!

Papers will be peer-reviewed. Each accepted paper will receive two formal commentaries plus comments from attendees and will be published in one of the Compass journals. Preference will be given to papers which hold interest for more than one discipline.

For more information on the conference and instructions for authors visit www.blackwell-compass.com/home_conference.

For more information on the Compass journals visit www.blackwell-compass.com.

Welcome to the second in a series of debates being hosted on the History Compass Theory & Methods Blog:

“What can GIS offer World History?”
Dates: 3-14 November, 2008

Using Jack Owens’ History Compass article, ‘Toward a Geographically-Integrated, Connected World History: Employing Geographical Information Systems (GIS)’ as a starting point this discussion looks at the role of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in World History.

Short position papers from each participant are posted below, both in PDF format and an onscreen version.

We invite all of you ‘attending’ online to comment and get involved in the discussion! Just use the comments feature on this post to share your views and respond to the issues raised.

Ian Gregory (University of Lancaster) – Position Paper PDF HTML

Stephen J. Hornsby (University of Maine) – Position Paper PDF HTML

Jack Owen (Idaho State University) – Article

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Ian Gregory (University of Lancaster) – Position Paper

Professor Owens is correct in his argument that Geographical Information Systems (GIS) have much to offer to the study of history. “Historical GIS,” as the use of GIS in historical research has become known, has been around for about a decade. In that time large strides have been taken in a number of areas: the development of databases such as the national historical GISs, the development of methodologies suitable for the unique challenges that historical data and historical research imposes on GIS, the growing development of a literature on historical GIS, and most importantly of all, research that uses GIS to provide new insights into historical topics where the interest is not in the use of GIS per se, but instead in the knowledge that it brings to our understanding of a topic within the discipline of history.

At its core a GIS is a type of database. What makes a GIS unique is the fact that each item of data in the database is linked to a co-ordinate-based representation of where the feature is located. This may be a point, a line, a polygon (that represents an area or zone), or a pixel. This apparently crude structure that owes its origins to quantitative, data-rich disciplines such as the environmental sciences has much to offer historical research because a GIS is able to provide information on what, where, and when. The GIS structures information according to location in space, can integrate disparate sources based on where they are, allows us to visualise geographical patterns through maps and other techniques, and allows us to conduct analyses in which the results vary according to where the data under study are located. This has the potential to greatly enhance our understanding of space, place, location and geography in historical research.

GIS is frequently seen as a mapping technology. While I believe this to be a major over-simplification, it serves as a useful starting point in understanding what GIS has to offer to historical research. A map is commonly thought of as the end point of a piece of research, in GIS however it is close to the beginning. As soon a GIS database is created it can be mapped. These maps can be re-defined, analysed and re-created throughout the research process. The map is a way of identifying and describing the spatial patterns within the database. The GIS is thus a descriptive technology. Its ability to describe spatial patterns, combined with a computer’s ability to handle large volumes of data, allows us to describe complex spatial patterns in an easily understandable way. At its simplest this poses questions to the researcher – “why is this happening here but not here?”

More broadly however GIS allows us to challenge existing historical orthodoxies. In a piece of research that I recently conducted I used GIS to map changes in infant mortality rates across England and Wales from the 1850s to the 1900s. The patterns were striking: the largest absolute declines occurred in the cities, this might be expected. The biggest proportional declines however occurred in rural parts of the south and east of the country with the rural north and west showing the smallest proportional falls. The conventional explanation for declines in infant mortality over this period is that they were driven by public health reforms. This does not fit with the patterns that the GIS reveals: rates started to fall before public health reforms were introduced and were occurring in areas where the public health movement would not be expected to have its biggest impact. This is not to say that public health reforms were not important, they probably were especially in urban areas. What it reveals is that to understand change in infant mortality over this period we need to understand that different things were happening in different places. The GIS is able to identify the different stories and where they were occurring. The reduction in rates in the rural south-east shows that there was a significant process driving down rates in these areas but that this failed to happen in the north and west. Urban areas had a very different story, and one whose characteristics were consistent with the public health story.

Here the GIS part of the analysis reaches its limits. We are able to describe the different patterns that occurred in different places and use this to challenge an explanation that was only based on one type of place. What the GIS is unable to do however is explain why the different stories occurred as they did. It is therefore primarily a descriptive approach that challenges more traditional forms of history to produce one or more explanations. Another example of this type of work is Geoff Cunfer’s On the Great Plains that looks at the pattern of dust storms over the entire Great Plains in the early twentieth century. Cunfer shows that there was little relationship between the number of dust storms and the degree to which an area was ploughed; indeed dust storms frequently took place in areas where no ploughing had occurred. This again challenges an orthodoxy, namely that the Dust Bowl was caused by over-intensive agriculture. Cunfer argues that the orthodox explanation originated in detailed studies of only a few areas near the centre of the Dust Bowl. Instead he argues that the Dust Bowl was more closely related to drought than it was to insensitive agriculture driven by the pressures of capitalism.

Image (c) Ian Gregory, 2008

So GIS can and does alter the way that we are able to look at specific historical topics. As currently conceived however it does have some serious limitations. The first is that GIS to date has largely concentrated on quantitative data. This will inevitably make it only of limited use in much historical research which is far more orientated towards qualitative sources, especially texts. The way that GIS represents space is also strongly quantitative. GIS is well suited to representing precisely located features that can be well represented using points, lines or polygons. It is far less suited to “fuzzier” concepts such as cultural regions or to places whose exact location is not known. From a distance it might be thought that GIS is well suited to exploit the “spatial turn”, however the concept of space used by GIS is far removed from the concept used by cultural historians. There are also some higher level problems that limit the adoption of GIS amongst many historians. These fall into three main categories. First, GIS software has become easier to use in recent years but still represents a barrier to entry. Second, using the software is one thing but understanding how it can be applied in historical research and what can be expected from it remains a barrier. Thirdly, creating GIS databases remains expensive and tedious work that often requires different skills to those of conducting research on the database.

This leads me to my questions for Jack which are as follows:

1. Does he agree with my identification of the strengths and limitations of a GIS approach in historical research? If so, what can be done to overcome the limitations?

2. Could he be more specific about how he feels that his project will lead to new understandings of trade in the Atlantic World? Will it be challenging established orthodoxies or developing completely new knowledge? Will it be descriptive or can it also be explanatory?

3. Why do we need “Geographically-enabled history”? After all, we have Historical GIS which is tightly focussed on the use of GIS. Above this historical geography is a well-established field to which people conducting historical GIS research are contributing almost by definition. Why then does he see the need for this intermediate level between the two?

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Stephen J. Hornsby (University of Maine) – Position Paper

In his paper, Professor Owens provides several important arguments in favor of incorporating GIS into historical research, particularly for understanding patterns and processes at the global level. As a geographer, I am sympathetic to his call for greater visualization in the discipline of History and his awareness that the map can be a powerful representational tool. I am also convinced that Historical GIS would be extremely useful in helping to organize large databases, such as the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database, and to present the material in spatial form. In comparison to a paper map, GIS allows manipulation of data and creation of dynamic animations. If done well, such a GIS would be a powerful aid in teaching students and educating the public. I am also intrigued by Professor Owens’ call for a Geographically-integrated history; many historical geographers are actively engaged in such a project. His suggestion that a Historical GIS could serve as a digital scaffold for a wide range of material, from documents to images and sound recordings, is excellent and something that I have considered building online, based on digital data in the forthcoming Historical Atlas of Maine.

Nevertheless, I remain skeptical of Historical GIS for several reasons. First, there is the obvious issue of data. GIS of the contemporary world are based on enormous databases. As we go back in time, such data diminish. Historical databases can be created but they usually need statistical information and a considerable investment of resources. Are the results from creating large Historical GIS going to justify the expense? Second, non-statistical cultural data are difficult to map and represent in a GIS. Are cultural data going to be left out? Third, as Professor Owens points out, maps and GIS are excellent for showing spatial distributions, but are not as effective as narrative text in representing or explaining change over time. A combination of text and map seems to work well. Fourth, the GIS that I have seen always seem clunky. The aesthetic representation of data in a GIS hardly seems to be have been addressed. I have yet to see a GIS that comes close to the work of a good cartographer. Finally, I wonder about the interest of historians in Historical GIS. History is a discipline wedded to text and narrative; the word is always privileged over the spatial image. Given the general lack of interest by historians in maps and in thinking spatially, I am dubious about the success of Historical GIS in the discipline.