Dear list members, I am putting together a proposal for a session at AJS and looking for participants. The session can be either seminar-style or a roundtable.
The topic I would like to explore is the changing nature of primary sources in the context of diasporic histories, such as Jewish history, and how as scholars we try to make sense out of it. Recently there has been a lot of hype about ‘big data’, but big data are not something new: we have always had big data in the form of archival, museum, library, or personal collections. What we lacked was meaningful ways to seamlessly access, link, and manipulate dispersed and disparate analog material existing all over the world, as is the case with Jewish history. The deluge of social media has created a vast, new—and presently, untapped—archive of already digital primary sources that reflect our lives today, especially in the case of ethnic populations. Questions that the session will seek to answer, and possibly develop in a white paper, are: Has the changing nature of primary sources affected our research? If yes, in which ways, and if not, what are the barriers and challenges we encounter? How do we visualize the process of researching, teaching, or writing Jewish history based on these new realities? As scholars of Jewish history, what are new applications, platforms or tools that we would like to see developed by archives, libraries, and museums in order to conduct research and produce scholarship? Please, send one paragraph describing your interest in participating, and contribution to the discussion, as well as a short bio to Amalia S. Levi at amaliasl [at] gmail.com by May 2. Also, in your e-mail, indicate your availability for the seminar format (or not), since AJS states that seminars will take place over two or three meetings over the conference (see more details here: http://www.ajsnet.org/callforpapers13.htm#formats). Thank you, Amalia S. Levi Ph.D. student College of Information Studies University of Maryland, College Park
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