[CFP] The Praxis of Digital Humanities: Expanding Horizons and Transforming Scholarship in the Arab/Islamic world

March 6-7, 2024
Department of Arabic and Translation Studies (ATS)
American University of Sharjah (AUS)

CALL FOR PAPERS
The emergence of digital humanities has revolutionized the landscape of academic research, providing unprecedented opportunities for scholars to explore, analyze and interpret literary texts and media in ways that were previously unimaginable. Particularly in the context of the Arab/Islamic world, the application of digital technologies has become increasingly crucial in expanding the horizons of scholarship, whether in exploring the power of computations and machine learning of languages such as Arabic, or in applying new methodologies in the analysis and interpretation of different kinds of data (textual, visual, audio, geospatial, network, etc). Digital humanities not only enable the preservation and dissemination of Arabic/Islamic literature and cultural heritage, but also facilitate interdisciplinary collaborations and offer new insights into the intricate connections between literature, media, religious studies, history, translation, computer science and other fields of study.

The Department of Arabic and Translation studies at American University of Sharjah (AUS) is pleased to invite you to participate in a two-day symposium on the Praxis of Digital Humanities. The symposium aims to bring together scholars and practitioners from diverse disciplines to explore the ways in which digital humanities approaches and technologies are revolutionizing the study, interpretation and dissemination of literary texts and cultural production in the Arab/Islamic world. It also aims to emphasize the importance of digital humanities and its transformative impact on the study of Arabic/Islamic literature and media in the present and the future. By focusing on an array of topics, including digital archives, computational analysis, close and distant reading methods, digital editions, spatial analysis, translation, storytelling, cultural heritage preservation, lexicography and dialects, this symposium seeks to illuminate the multifaceted ways in which digital technologies are reshaping our understanding and interpretation of the Arab/Islamic literary and cultural traditions. Through this interdisciplinary exploration, we aim to address the challenges, opportunities and limitations associated with digital approaches, and to foster innovative research collaborations that expand the frontiers of knowledge in the Arab/Islamic context.

The symposium invites original contributions that explore the intersection of digital humanities and literature/media in the context of the Arab/Islamic world. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

Arabic/Islamic literature and media
digital archives and databases of historical Arabic/Islamic literature and media
computational analysis and visualization of Islamic religious texts
digital tools and platforms for analyzing Arabic/Islamic literature and media data
close vs. distant reading methods of Arabic/Islamic literature and media
digital editions and critical editions of Arabic/Islamic texts
digital mapping and spatial analysis of Arabic/Islamic literary landscapes
digital storytelling and oral history
digital humanities and Arabic/Islamic cultural heritage preservation and sustainability
digital methodologies in Arabic/Islamic lexicography
digital humanities approaches to Arabic dialects

Arabic/Islamic literature in translation
digital humanities and Arabic/Islamic literature in translation
incorporating translations into digital collections for cross-cultural accessibility
translation and digital reception studies: analyzing the impact of translations on the digital audience’s perception of Arabic/Islamic texts
translation and gamification in DH: using translation tasks in digital games for language learning and cultural understanding
translation and natural language processing (NLP): integrating NLP techniques in translation tasks for Arabic/Islamic texts
translation and sentiment analysis in Arabic/Islamic social media
using translation in augmented/virtual reality (AR/VR) applications for Arabic/Islamic literature and culture

For more details, please visit: https://info.aus.edu/ara-2024