Call for Papers – DHQ Special Issue on “Digital Humanities & Film Studies: Analyzing the Modalities of Moving Images”

Die DHd AG Film und Video und Organisatoren des Anfang Mai stattgefunden Workshops “Computer-based Approaches for the Analysis of Film Style” möchten Sie gerne auf den unten in der Folge zum Workshop entstandenen öffentlichen Call for Papers aufmerksam machen:

Call for Papers – DHQ Special Issue on “Digital Humanities & Film Studies: Analyzing the Modalities of Moving Images”

Guest editors: Manuel Burghardt, Adelheid Heftberger, Johannes Pause, Niels-Oliver Walkowski & Matthias Zeppelzauer

Ever since Roberto Busa’s well-known Index Thomisticus, the Digital Humanities have had a strong focus on textual material. One reason for the “blind spot” when it comes to analyzing moving images, is the complex nature of film, which entangles different modalities across sound, vision and language. Furthermore, rights issues and lack of availability of (proper) sources still remain a problem for the analysis of large data sets, although audiovisual material becomes gradually more available due to digitization of analog elements and born digital film production.

Nonetheless, a shift toward a greater visibility of film and media studies in the Digital Humanities can be noticed. The planned special issue for Digital Humanities Quarterly (DHQ) on “Digital Humanities & Film Studies: Analyzing the Modalities of Moving Images” aims to revisit existing quantitative approaches for film analysis and to discuss the possible application of computational methods in this domain. In addition, the special issue aims to contribute to the growing awareness in the field by providing both methodological research as well as presenting case studies of existing (albeit scattered) initiatives and research projects.

Inspired by a recent workshop on “Computer-based Approaches for the Analysis of Film Style” (May 3-4, Potsdam), we invite contributions on the special issue’s theme that present criticism and reflection, methods and tools, or concrete case studies.

Please send your extended abstracts (max. length 750 words, excluding references) to Manuel Burghardt (burghardt@informatik.uni-leipzig.de) until July 15, 2018. Based on the extended abstracts, we will prepare a special issue proposal for DHQ, which is due July 30, 2018. Once the proposal gets accepted, we will ask you to submit full-length articles according to the DHQ author guidelines. The articles will then be peer-reviewed by the DHQ reviewer pool. For further questions please feel free to contact any of the guest editors.