SIS Themed Conference ‘Italian Studies at the Digital Turn. Practice, Methods, Interdisciplinarity’
SIS Themed Conference ‘Italian Studies at the Digital Turn. Practice, Methods, Interdisciplinarity’
Society for Italian Studies in the UK and Ireland (SIS)
Italian Studies at the Digital Turn. Practice, Methods, Interdisciplinarity
University of Leeds, 23-24 June 2025
[ITALIAN VERSION BELOW]
The last decade has witnessed a significant rise in the use of digital and computational methods across research, scholarship, and education, fundamentally reshaping the humanities and modern languages. The evolution of the Semantic Web, the widespread adoption of the smartphone, and the rise of social media have transformed our cultural and social lives. Recent advancements and the commercialisation of Generative Artificial Intelligence hold the potential to significantly change the ways in which we access and interact with digital environments, creating new possibilities and risks. The 2025 themed conference of the Society for Italian Studies in the UK and Ireland (SIS), Italian Studies at the Digital Turn. Practice, Methods, Interdisciplinarity, held at the University of Leeds, 23-24 June 2025, will explore how the field of Italian Studies has responded to this ‘digital turn.’
We would like this event to be inclusive and to act as a bridge between those who have been engaging with the digital for a short or long time, those who study it, those who are considering using it, and those who want to learn more about the state of the art of digital use in the broad field of Italian Studies. Whether your research and your scholarly and teaching practices already employ digital methods and concern digital objects or you are “digitally curious”, we invite you to join us in a conversation at the intersection between the Digital Humanities (DH) and Italian Studies.
We invite submissions that engage with both theoretical and practical aspects of the digital within Italian Studies, with the aim to:
· Showcase past and ongoing projects in Digital Italian Studies
· Bring to light and map out new ideas and approaches in Digital Italian Studies
· Create a forum for discussing the affordances and challenges of these methods
· Encourage broad conversations within the Italian Studies community to foster partnerships, networks, and collaborative projects that intersect with DH’s objects and methods
Areas of Interest
We welcome contributions that investigate current and future perspectives on how digital humanities enrich, shape and challenge Italian Studies, including but not limited to:
· Research employing DH methods focusing on Italy across various periods, from the Middle Ages to the 21st century
· Approaches to convergence culture
· Reflection on the digital as a conceptual paradigm
· The digital transmission and reception of cultural items
· The impact of the ‘digital revolution’ in contemporary society and culture
· The potential of digital methods to foster interdisciplinarity
· The use of digital tools and resources in teaching and assessment, including opportunities and challenges posed by Artificial Intelligence
· The use of digital methods for the dissemination and communication of research
· The study of digital cultural items and platforms
· The digital as an element used in literary, social and cultural storytelling
Italian Studies is intended here in its broader sense – from literature to history and the public humanities, film and media studies, linguistics and language acquisition (L1, L2, LS), translation, cultural studies, and visual arts. We also welcome comparative and transnational proposals that situate Italian Studies within the wider landscape of Modern Languages and the Humanities.
The keynote address will be delivered by Elena Pierazzo, Professor of Digital Humanites at the University of Tours – the author of Digital Scholarly Editing: Theories, Models and Methods (Routledge, 2020) and PI of the ERC project PRIMA Manuscripts in the Age of Print.
In addition to traditional conference sessions, panels of papers, and roundtables, we envisage having practical sessions on digital methods in research, scholarship and teaching, and on their use in grant applications, for postgraduates and early-career researchers.
We welcome proposals for:
- Individual papers (15 minutes, to encourage discussion)
- Digital posters showcasing DH resources and tools (e.g. interactive posters, project websites, apps and digital collections or archives), as part of a digital fair (this will be hosted in a room equipped with screens, where participants will be able to project and interactively display a digital tool/project they have developed).
Proposals for other formats, such as roundtables and panels organised by the proposer/s, will be taken into consideration. Please, get in touch with the organisers to enquire and for further information.
The conference will be held in person, and the languages are both English and Italian.
Submission Guidelines
Please submit your abstracts (max. 300 words for individual contributions) along with a brief bio (max. 100 words) to sis2025.digitalturn@gmail.com by 10th January 2025 at 5pm UK time. Notifications of acceptance will be sent by 10 February 2025.
We are keen to include a diverse range of participants, particularly in relation to career stage, gender, and race; we will arrange panels and sessions to ensure a balanced representation in each panel wherever possible, in adherence with the SIS Policy for Conferences and Event Planning guidelines (https://italianstudies.org.uk/front-page/edi/our-policies/).
Unwaged, postgraduate, and early career academics participants will be able to apply for a small number of bursaries to assist with travel and/or accommodation costs. Details and instructions on how to apply will be given at registration stage.
For more information, please contact sis2025.digitalturn@gmail.com.
The organising committee: Laura Lucia Rossi, Alessio Baldini, Olivia Santovetti, Gigliola Sulis (University of Leeds)
[ITALIAN VERSION]
L’ultimo decennio ha visto un aumento significativo dell’uso di metodi digitali e computazionali nella ricerca e nell’insegnamento, che ha coinvolto anche le discipline umanistiche. L’evoluzione del cosiddetto Semantic Web e l’uso ormai trasversale degli smartphone hanno rivoluzionato le nostre vite sia dal punto di vista sociale che culturale. Inoltre, i più recenti progressi dell’Intelligenza Artificiale e la sua commercializzazione su ampia scala hanno reso evidente come tali strumenti siano in grado di cambiare radicalmente i modi del nostro accesso e dell’interazione con gli ambienti digitali, generando sia nuove possibilità sia nuovi rischi. Italian Studies at the Digital Turn. Practice, Methods, Interdisciplinarity, convegno della Society for Italian Studies in the UK and Ireland (SIS) organizzato per il 23-24 giugno 2025 presso la University of Leeds, intende esplorare come il settore degli Italian Studies stia rispondendo alla ‘svolta digitale’.
Il convegno s