Digital Humanities Conference Opens June 22 at UMD

Plenary lectures from Lev Manovich and Christine Borgman will be free and open to the public.

From June 22 through June 25, 2009, the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities (MITH) and the University of Maryland will play host to more than 300 scholars for Digital Humanities 2009, the premier international conference in the field of digital humanities.

The selection of Maryland as host reflects the University's stature in the field. "Right now, the University of Maryland is one of the top places in the world for those working in the digital humanities," says Neil Fraistat, Professor of English and Director of MITH. Fraistat and Matthew Kirschenbaum, Associate Professor of English and Associate Director of MITH, are serving as the local organizers for the conference. Other participants from the Department of English include Tanya Clement, Nathan Kelber, Kari Kraus, Marilee Lindemann, Kate Singer, and Martha Nell Smith.

Lev Manovich, Professor of Visual Arts at the University of California, San Diego and Christine Borgman, Professor & Presidential Chair of Information Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, will punctuate the conference with plenary addresses pointing toward new directions in the field. At 6:00PM on Monday, June 22, Manovich will give a lecture titled "Activating the Archive, Or: Data Dandy Meets Data Mining." At 5:30PM on Tuesday, June 23, Borgman will give a lecture titled "Scholarship in the Digital Age: Blurring the Boundaries Between the Sciences and the Arts." Both lectures will be held in the Hoff Theater, Stamp Student Union, and both are free and open to the public.

A feature article on Digital Humanities 2009 is in the most recent edition of the "Between the Columns" newsletter.