One of the tenets of the Centre for Privacy Studies research method (https://teol.ku.dk/privacy/research/work-method/privacy_work_method.pdf/PRIVACY_Work_Method_Acces.pdf) is that the analysis of historical privacy can be strategically subdivided in three complementary approaches to primary sources. The first approach focuses on terminologies of privacy, and seeks to unveil the different discursive inflections used throughout history to express experiences and norms around privacy. The second approach focuses on zones of privacy, and proposes a heuristic strategy to examine the social and spatial organization of practices related to privacy. The third approach focuses on mapping the semantics of privacy, zooming in, for instance, on its opposites in order to uncover what can be learned by analyzing contrasting terms. Close-reading of sources is at the heart of these complementary methodological approaches: they privilege intimate contact and close analysis of the historical material.
The present call for short research articles invites researchers to engage computational and digital methods to expand the scope of the PRIVACY method mentioned above. We welcome contributions that honor the historian’s attention to primary sources, but also enable a birds-eye view of topics related of historical privacy. We are particularly interested in case-studies that exercise their methods in a critical way, taking care to unite the potential of computational tools with a reflection of how digital and computational humanities might: 1) enhance research into historical privacy, 2) open up new avenues of analysis, 3) drive historical arguments, and 4) raise new research questions.
Submissions will be considered on a rolling basis until Friday 15 October 2021. You are welcome to submit your text as soon as possible, to increase your chances of being selected to enter the peer-review process.
We welcome submission of short research articles (3000 words) that analyze historical privacy through the use of tools such as:
- Digital mapping and Geographical Information System (GIS)
- Natural language processing (topic modeling, sentiment analysis, sense disambiguation, etc.)
- 3D reconstruction and Building Information Modeling (BIM)
- Network analysis and visualization
Selected short articles will be part of a peer-reviewed, open access edited collection focused on early modern privacy (1500-1800). The collection will appear as a special issue of a digital humanities journal. We seek to feature case-studies stemming from European contexts or that employ a transnational or comparative perspective between Europe and other parts of the world. The collection will contain contributions both from the PRIVACY research team as well as from external authors. The language of publication is English, but authors are welcome to engage with primary sources in other languages. Please use the Chicago Manual of Style with shortened notes and bibliography format. The short length of the texts allows for submission of ongoing research and early findings. We encourage early career researchers and PhD candidates to submit their contributions.
Submissions will be considered on a rolling basis until Friday 15 October 2021. You will be notified of whether your text was selected to enter the peer-review process no later than Friday 3rd December 2021. The volume editors, Sanne Maekelberg and Natália da Silva Perez, will provide editorial guidance to the authors of selected articles in order to improve the chances of success during the peer-review process. We also plan a workshop about digital methods for historical research for selected contributors.
Please upload your short research article (3000 words) together with your CV using this form: https://teol.ku.dk/privacy/news/news-2021/call-for-short-research-articles-digital-methodologies-for-research-on-early-modern-privacy-1500-1800/upload-here/?obvius_session_id=02db56c2c012914bcea09cb968ffc378