DHN2020 is postponed to 20–23 October 2020!
#DHN2020 is postponed to 20–23 October 2020!
The general outline of the programme will not change:
October 20: pre-conference workshops,
October 21–23: the main programme.
More information will follow!
Registration open for DHN2020 conference
The 5th annual conference “Digital Humanities in the Nordic and Baltic Countries” (DHN2020) will be held from the 17th to the 20th of March, 2020, at the National Library of Latvia. The early bird registration rates are applicable until February 2th: https://ej.uz/DHN20_reg
Special guests of the conference this year will be Professor of Social and Ethical Artificial Intelligence at Umeå University Virginia Dignum, Professor of Folkloristics at the University of Iceland Terry Gunnel, Researcher at the Cambridge Social Decision-Making Lab at the University of Cambridge Jon Roozenbeek, and Chair and Principal Investigator at the Laboratory for Perceptual and Cognitive Systems at the Faculty of Computing at the University of Latvia prof. Jurģis Šķilters. More than 80 papers and 20 academic poster presentations are included in the main programme of the conference.
Read more...Fellowship awarded for Sanita Reinsone's book "Forest Daughters" translation into English
Translator Kaija Straumanis awarded a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts (USA) to support the translation from the Latvian of the nonfiction collection Forest Daughters, edited by ILFA's researcher Sanita Reinsone. This collection includes 12 life stories of Latvian women who lived in the thick of the guerilla war against Soviet invasion and occupation. Often left out of Latvia's guerilla war history, women played an integral role in protecting their homeland. Reinsone (b. 1981), a scholar in Latvian folklore, oral history, and digital humanities, recorded the stories of these women in a documentary-essay style and each chapter is alive with the respective woman's experience as she recalls harrowing and heart-wrenching events of her life during this period in history.
Call for Papers: Socialist Folkloristics: A Disciplinary Heritage
Are you working on the post-war disciplinary history of folkloristics or related discipline in the former Soviet Union or the Socialist Bloc countries? Please consider contributing a draft of original research article to the international, peer reviewed, and SCOPUS or Web of Science indexed volume in summer 2020. The collection of articles will be prepared by the Institute of Literature, Folklore and Art of the University of Latvia.
In order to maximize the impact of research dedicated to disciplinary histories of the previous Socialist world and establish new networks within the field, an interdisciplinary, international conference will be organized on 29-31 October 2020 in Riga, Latvia.
Deadlines:
31.01.2020. - send to SocFolk@gmail.com:
- your name, surname and a short bio,
- title of your article and keywords,
- concept or summary of the article (up to 350 words);
17.02.2020. – notice of acceptance and further information;
20.06.2020. - 7000–10000 words long original article in English;
Fall 2020 – peer-review and editing.
Read more...The most recent issue of 'Letonica' has been published
Along with the fruits of the land fall has also brought the 39th issue of the humanities journal 'Letonica'. Guest-edited by ILFA researcher Toms Ķencis, the issue is dedicated to folklore within the relationship between state and tradition. As such it reflects the centenary of statehood of Latvia celebrated on 2018.
Twelve double-blind peer-reviewed papers published in the journal are mostly related to three events: last year’s Krišjānis Barons memorial conference ‘Traditions and state’, the most recent project of the disciplinary history research 'Latvian folkloristics (1945-1985)' carried out at ILFA, and the publication of the first part of the 11th volume ('Wedding') of the academic edition of Latvian folksongs. Apart from one paper originally in English, all articles are in Latvian with an English summaries. The articles are followed by a special paper on the Archives of Latvian Folklore, eight book reviews and disciplinary news. Read more...
Conference on Folklore and Education
Krišjānis Barons’ Conference is an annual academic forum organized by the Archives of Latvian Folklore, ILFA, UL. In 2019, the topic is "Folklore and Education" (Folklora un izglītība). Viewed from diverse perspectives, the place of traditional culture in formal and informal educational processes will be discussed.
There will be 18 researchers from various fields of humanities, social sciences and arts presenting their papers. Both historical and current issues will be analysed, including folklore as an ideological educational tool, folklore in textbooks, contribution of students and teachers in documenting traditions, teacher jokes, intangible heritage in education, challenges and methods of teaching folklore, etc. Read more...
DHN 2020 Conference: Call For Papers
The annual conference, "Digital Humanities in the Nordic Countries,"
invites submissions of proposals for its 5th conference to be held
in Riga, Latvia, 17–20 March 2020. The DHN conferences
aim to provide an overview of research, education and communication
about the interdisciplinary field of digital humanities from the
Nordic to the Baltic region, and beyond.
New deadline: 30 September 2019!
Commerce and Traditions
14th Conference of the SIEF Ritual Year Working Group
15–17 November 2020, Riga (Latvia)
Theme
The impact of product marketing is visible in everyday life, including a wide range of traditions and festivities, which have lately become highly commercialized. In marketing terms, the values of traditional culture are considered "products" to be branded, marketed and sold. We have all experienced the pre-Christmas gift buying madness and have visited souvenir counters at major historical sites and cultural venues in different countries, each promoting their "brands". Historically, annual church markets, fairs and pilgrimages attracted people from great distances, providing opportunities to buy, sell, and trade durable goods in addition to food and drink required by pilgrims and merchants. Additional items, such as religious symbols, protective objects, and healing substances were available much as in modern souvenir shops. The means for advertising such objects for sale were, at that time, limited. Today advertising and marketing campaigns appear everywhere. Many people protest against what they perceive as excessive commercialization of their favourite secular or religious festivals. However, marketing practices attract larger crowds and help to preserve and popularize traditions that might otherwise be lost. Commercialization has made the sale of traditional crafts financially viable, preserving them for future generations. Thus, it is possible for craftspeople to continue practicing their traditional arts and crafts. Not only have the traditional artisans benefited, but religious institutions have witnessed an increase in income, which is needed to maintain the facilities visited by the growing numbers of visitors. New forms of commercialization of rituals with the developing practices of creating new festivals and making them local tourist brands can be seen in many geographical areas.
Read more...Knut Djupedal’s Guest Lecture
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A guest lecture by Norwegian researcher Knut Djupedal is expected at the Archives of Latvian Folklore on August 14, 2019. Mr. Djupedal’s lecture is entitled “World View, Culture, and Folklore.” The lecture will discuss the relationship between these three concepts. At the end of the lecture, Mr. Djupedal will discuss some of the practical uses that an education in folklore – in his experience - can provide when studies are finished, a degree is achieved, and a living must be made.
Knut Djupedal (b. 1948) has recently retired from a 27-year career as director of the Norwegian Emigrant Museum, near Hamar, Norway. Previously, Djupedal, who has an M.A. in History from the University of Oregon, USA, and a Magister Artium in Folkloristics from the University of Bergen, Norway, worked as Research Associate with the Norwegian Research Council for the Humanities (NAVF), on projects concerning Norwegian emigration and return migration. He also served as Temporary County Cultural Conservator in Sogn og Fjordane County, Norway, and lectured at the Universities of Bergen, Oslo and Stavanger, and The Hamar University College of Education.
Read more...Baltic Summer School of Digital Humanities 2019 (BSSDH 2019)
Tuesday, 23 July, 2019 (All day) to Friday, 26 July, 2019 (All day)
BSSDH programme offers must-have introductory courses for digital humanists and digital social scientists who wish to come to grips with programming and text encoding. The course is co-taught by an international team of researchers and practitioners of digital humanities and digital social sciences coming from Germany, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia. As always, this will be a great opportunity to meet colleagues and mentors from other countries and explore different perspectives! Read more...
How to Facilitate Cooperation between Humanities Researchers and Cultural Heritage Institutions
Our leading researcher Sanita Reinsone is one of the authors of the newly published report How to Facilitate Cooperation between Humanities Researchers and Cultural Heritage Institutions. Guidelines, edited by Maciej Maryl and Klaudia Grabowska from the Digital Humanities Centre at the Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences. This report is the outcome of a hands-on workshop awarded funding by the DARIAH Theme Grant 2017 and organised in the project ‘Facilitating Cooperation Between Humanities Researchers and Cultural Heritage Institutions’ which is implemented by the Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Trinity College Dublin and Creative Commons Polska.
'Visions and Traditions – Knowledge Productions and Tradition Archives' is the winner of the Brenda McCallum Prize
We are very proud and happy, that the book 'Visions and Traditions – Knowledge Productions and Tradition Archives' is the winner of the 2018 Brenda McCallum Prize, for works of excellence and innovation that further the cause of preservation, organization, curation, or enhanced public access and use related to folklife archival collections:
"We congratulate the authors and editors on a work the Committee agreed was forward-looking, cutting edge, and tightly focused on centralmatters of folklore and folklife archiving, history, theory, and practice. Committee members also saw the work as propelling folklore archives into the modern era of disciplinary shifts by claiming a firm foothold in academic conversations accessible to archivists, folklorists, and folklore-archivists. It also offered numerous interesting case study examples for contemplation."
– American Folklore Society / Archives & Libraries Section Prize Committee
Among the editors and authors are our leading researchers Rita Treija and Sanita Reinsone.
Latvian Academy of Sciences Yearbook 2019
The Latvian Academy of Sciences informs that in March this year English version of the Yearbook of the Latvian Academy of Sciences 2019 was released. The English version of the Yearbook contains basic information on the Academy, and is supplemented also with a chapter on research novelties in the humanities and natural sciences in Latvia.
The article "Popular Enlightenment in the 18th and 19th Centuries and Its Legacy Today" by Pauls Daija, Corresponding Member of the Latvian Academy of Sciences, and Leading Researcher at the Institute of Folklore, Literature and Art, has been published in the Yearbook.
The English version of the Yearbook is a follow-up edition published since 1991. Beginning with 1998, the annual reports cover the period from March of the preceding year until March of the current year i.e. the year of publication. Since 2006 the annual reports are available both in printed and online versions.
Sing with the Archives
On 15th of February the Archives of Latvian Folklore launches a creative crowdsourcing campaign "Sing with the Archives". Its aim is to popularize the archival sound recordings and explore contemporary interpretations of traditional music. The digital platform dziedi.garamantas.lv invites to listen to the archival songs, to add their cover versions to the old recordings and to vote for the new versions.
How did traditional music sound long ago and how does it sound
today? The project invites you to learn some new songs from the
Digital Archives of Latvian Folklore and sing, record, arrange,
compose, and upload your own 'cover versions' to the Archive's audio
collection. The
selection of recordings complied for this campaign includes a
rich variety of songs in terms of content, style, origin, and
language – everyday songs and mythological songs, joyful songs
and sorrowful songs, folk songs and popular songs in Latvian,
Livonian, Belarussian, Russian, and Romani. All regions of
Latvia, as well as Latvian villages in Siberia and Bashkiria are
represented in the selection. The oldest recordings were made in
the 1920s and 30s, and the newest are from the beginning of the
21st century. Read more... CLARIN (Common Language Resources and Technology Infrastructure) is a research infrastructure that was initiated from the vision that all digital language resources and tools from all over Europe and beyond are accessible through a single sign-on online environment for the support of researchers in the humanities and social sciences. You can read the interview here.
Tour de CLARIN: Interview with Sanita Reinsone
Tour de CLARIN highlights prominent User Involvement (UI) activities of a particular CLARIN national consortium. This time the focus is on Latvia and Sanita Reinsone, a leading researcher at the Institute of Literature, Folklore and Art at the University of Latvia. The interview was conducted via Skype by Jakob Lenardič.
