Dear all, Please see the following call for papers for the forthcoming Digital Transformers Symposium. Best wishes, Jo ---- *Digital Transformers Symposium, Manchester, 23rd May 2013* The AHRC funded *Digital Transformers Symposium* ( http://www.digitaltransformersnetwork.com) is a one day event aimed at postgraduate students and early career researchers in the Humanities on the methodological and conceptual approaches and techniques required for the study of digital data and digitally mediated environments. The event will combine presentations and workshops, giving participants hands on experience of new techniques for working with digital data and space for discussion about the methodological, conceptual and disciplinary challenges these emerging techniques and practices are generating. Ways of understanding and analysing digital data and digitally mediated environments are varied and complex. The skills required are increasingly specialised and do not necessarily conform to any particular theoretical or epistemological perspective. At the same time, an expanding set of broadly applicable concepts, techniques and methods are emerging that can be used across, and tailored to, the needs of multiple disciplines in the Humanities. Examples include data visualisation techniques, text and data mining, and network analysis, and theories and concepts around the socio-cultural, socio-political and cognitive processes that affect the use and interpretation of digital data and digitally mediated environments. Key symposium themes to be explored therefore include: - Key concepts and theories that inform the study of digital data and digitally mediated environments. - The wider socio-political, philosophical and cultural concepts/issues surrounding these. - Methodological approaches to the study of digital data and digitally mediated environments. - Particular techniques and tools that can be used to study, analyse, and represent digital data and digitally mediated environments. The symposium organisers invite papers from research students and early career researchers in the Humanities that explore these, and related, themes. *Submission information* Abstracts (maximum 300 words) for *15 minute* research and position papers related to the symposium themes are requested by the deadline of *28 February 2013* to *digitaltransformersnetwork@gmail.com* Proposals for panels of 3-4 speakers are also welcome. A proposal should have three to four papers and should consist of a panel title and short framing text, and abstracts for all the papers with paper titles and authors. Proposals are requested by the deadline of *28 February 2013* to * digitaltransformersnetwork@gmail.com* *Notification of acceptance: 31 March 2013* A small amount of funding is available on a competitive basis to cover travel and subsistence costs for participants unable to source funding from elsewhere. Applications for funding will open in March 2013. *Organisers and funders* The Digital Transformers Symposium is funded by a Collaborative Skills Development training grant awarded by the AHRC. It is being co-organised by postgraduate students and early career researchers from Manchester Metropolitan University's Department of Information and Communications and the University of Sheffield's Information School. *For further information please see ** http://www.digitaltransformersnetwork.com/<https://db3prd0104.outlook.com/owa/redir.aspx?C=xIsVrcmbqUiWohuOIS3eec5nRAmHx88IWeWoWW04XvB9XQoEjVyMDhnGxDlfdYSNja9ePzqaJe0.&URL=http%3a%2f%2fwww.digitaltransformersnetwork.com%2f> or contact us at *digitaltransformersnetwork@gmail.com<https://db3prd0104.outlook.com/owa/redir.aspx?C=xIsVrcmbqUiWohuOIS3eec5nRAmHx88IWeWoWW04XvB9XQoEjVyMDhnGxDlfdYSNja9ePzqaJe0.&URL=mailto%3adigitaltransformersnetwork%40gmail.com> -- Jo Bates Lecturer Room 236, Information School, University of Sheffield, Sheffield S1 4DP, United Kingdom Email: jo.bates@sheffield.ac.uk Phone: 0114 2222648