President’s Welcome
“DHA2014: Expanding Horizons” will be held 18–21 March 2014, co-hosted by The University of Western Australia and iVEC. The CFP will be posted soon.
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It is a privilege to welcome you to the Australasian Association for Digital Humanities (aaDH), established to serve a growing digital research community in Australia, New Zealand and more widely in the region of Australasia and the Pacific.
The formation of the Association is the outcome of a workshop, sponsored by the Australian Academy of the Humanities, held on 22 March 2011 at the Australian National University . The workshop brought together 40 leading researchers, project directors and sector representatives to plan for the establishment of an Australasian professional association. Two international guests, Professor Ray Siemens (Canada Research Chair in Humanities Computing at Victoria University) and Dr Patrik Svensson (Director of HUMlab, the digital research centre at Umeå University, Sweden) gave keynote lectures that positioned Australasian digital humanities research in a global context.
Our association is aligned with an international network of digital humanities organisations in UK, Japan, Europe, USA and Canada. We share a common goal of bringing together like-minded researchers and practitioners to enhance and develop computing in humanities research. Data-driven research is changing the way knowledge is produced, with increased accessibility and evolving methods of locating, presenting, sharing and analysing information having a major impact on the processes and products of research across all disciplines. We understand digital humanities as being the application of computing technology and techniques to build greater understanding of our diverse social and cultural archives, employing and designing tools, formats and approaches to support new methods and findings. The association promotes applied as well as theoretical research.
I invite you to join our community by becoming a member of the association. In doing so, you will become part of the first formal network of digital humanities scholars and practitioners across Australasia. The aaDH is a meeting place, a forum for reporting on the latest publications and work in the field, and a place to hear about and be part of future events and initiatives.
As well as receiving the LLC Journal of Digital Scholarship in the Humanities, members of aaDH support a range of initiatives including hosting of conferences and events, financial support for student and early career bursaries, publications in the digital humanities, network building nationally, regionally and internationally.
Dr Paul Arthur, President, aaDH
Australian National University