Digital Keywords

Culture Digitally is thrilled to partner with a new initiative, the Digital Keywords Workshop, spearheaded by Ben Peters (University of  Tulsa).

The goal of the Digital Keywords Workshop, a boutique scholarly forum, is to work through and critique some terms central to our research and the digitally lit world. We seek to publish — on the fortieth anniversary of Raymond William’s 1976 classic Keywords — short keyword provocations accessible to any educated reader of English and at once relevant to current scholarly research: each participant has been invited to get at the very basics of topics that fascinates and animates our work.

The workshop will proceed in three steps:

1. Selected scholars and students have been invited to fully draft short digital keyword entries during this 2013-2014 academic year. Below is the preliminary list of keyword contributors and their abstracts. We hope you agree this promises to be a fine mix of folks and fields!

2. During the summer of 2014, those keyword drafts will appear here for an open comment period. If you’re reading this, you are invited to comment. Please, come and play online!

3. Invited participants will meet in downtown Tulsa, Oklahoma on October 10 and 11, 2014 to constructively critique and workshop their drafts in person. Each keyword discussion will begin with a prepared critical respondent. The format maximizes constructive critique and minimizes paper reading.

Culture Digitally will help to circulate the efforts of this initiative. As the authors produce their drafts, they will be posted on Culture Digitally for public comment and discussion, and listed below. Then news of, and excerpts from, the volume will appear here when it is nearing publication.

So please spread the word, stay tuned, and comment on the posted drafts. While the conference organizers do not have additional funding, anyone interested in participating in these conversations but with questions about how they might do so should feel free to be in touch with Benjamin Peters.

Digital Keywords Workshop (official site)

Announcement and abstracts (Nov 18, 2013)


DRAFTS:

Culture (Ted Striphas)

Democracy (Rasmus Nielsen)

Digital (Ben Peters)

Analog (Jonathan Sterne)

Geek (Christina Dunbar-Hester)

Forum (Hope Forsyth)

Sharing (Nicholas John)

Personalization (Stephanie Schulte)

Cloud (John Durham Peters)

Gaming (Saugata Bhaduri)

Cyber-activism (Guobin Yang)

Event (Julia Sonnevend)

Memory (Steven Schrag)

Prototype (Fred Turner)

Algorithm (Tarleton Gillespie)

Community (Rosemary Avance)

Mirror (Adam Fish)

Archive (Katherine D. Harris)

Surrogate (Jeffrey Drouin)

Internet (Tom Streeter)

Hackers (Gabriella Coleman)