Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 39, No. 289.
Department of Digital Humanities, University of Cologne
Hosted by DH-Cologne
www.dhhumanist.org
Submit to: humanist@dhhumanist.org
[1] From: Suzanne Mpouli <suzanne.mpouli@gmail.com>
Subject: Call for Papers - Computational Cultural Science Workshop (Paris, 18-19 May 2026) (79)
[2] From: Nick Hopwood <ndh12@CAM.AC.UK>
Subject: Peer review, past, present … and future: Aileen Fyfe at the Cambridge Philosophical Society on Monday 16 March (62)
[3] From: Rodolfo Garau <rudigarau@YAHOO.IT>
Subject: cfp: Francis Bacon 1626–2026: Four Centuries of Thought, New Horizons for Research - UTN, 12-13 June, 2026 (59)
[4] From: Digital Humanities Potsdam <digital-humanities@uni-potsdam.de>
Subject: CCLS 2026: Call for Posters (deadline: 03.03.2026) (29)
[5] From: Nathalie Aussenac-Gilles <nathalie.aussenac-gilles@irit.fr>
Subject: [2nd CFP] 1st International Workshop on Quality in Large Language Models and Knowledge Graphs (84)
[6] From: Diane Jakacki <dkj004@bucknell.edu>
Subject: Extension (9 February) for poster slam submissions to DH 2026 (Pedagogy and Training SIG) (84)
[7] From: Nick Hopwood <ndh12@cam.ac.uk>
Subject: Reminder: CFA: 'Problems of Growth', Ischia Summer School on the History of the Life Sciences, 28 June – 5 July, Ischia, Italy (250)
[8] From: Simona Frenda <simona.frenda@gmail.com>
Subject: 2nd Call for paper: The Information Disorder Workshop (129)
[9] From: Chiara Palladino <chiarapalladino1@gmail.com>
Subject: Deadline Extended - AI and the Study of the Ancient Near East (69)
[10] From: Joanna Byszuk-Podsadniuk <joanna.byszuk@ijppan.pl>
Subject: 2026 EADH Conference (50)
[11] From: Franz FISCHER <franz.fischer@unive.it>
Subject: Editorial Case Studies from Goethe's Venetian Epigrams, January 15–16, 2026 (76)
[12] From: Michael Piotrowski <michael.piotrowski@unil.ch>
Subject: [SUSPECTED SPAM] CfP: 3rd Workshop on Computational Methods in the Humanities (COMHUM 2026), Lausanne, Switzerland (82)
[13] From: Simone Rebora <simone.rebora81@gmail.com>
Subject: “Accessible Textual Heritage” Course – second Call for Applications (64)
[14] From: Elena Spadini <spadinielena@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Humanist] 39.226: events: workshop on APIs in re-use of editions and text (Zürich) (16)
--[1]------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 2026-01-20 12:21:52+00:00
From: Suzanne Mpouli <suzanne.mpouli@gmail.com>
Subject: Call for Papers - Computational Cultural Science Workshop (Paris, 18-19 May 2026)
Computational Cultural Science Workshop
Website: https://c2s.sciencesconf.org/
Date: 18-19 May 2026
Place: Paris
Workshop description
Recent years have witnessed a growing interest in applying computational
methods to the study of culture, as demonstrated by the creation of
dedicated conferences and journals such as the Journal of Cultural
Analytics, or the Computational Humanities Research journal and annual
conferences. Deep learning approaches, in particular, have opened new
possibilities in terms of building, querying and modelling large cultural
datasets (texts, videos, images...). In this respect, in collaboration with
the Master of Digital Humanities
<https://www.chartes.psl.eu/en/trainings/masters/master-digital-humanities>
(École nationale des Chartes), the PSL CultureLab
<https://www.culturelab.psl.eu/> is organizing a satellite event of the
2026 Humanistica conference which will be focused on computational sciences
of culture.
This two-day workshop aims at providing a space to share ideas and
experiences on studying cultural artefacts with computational methods, and
hopes to showcase the diversity of this field through oral presentations,
lightning talks, and a poster session. Topics of interest include but are
not limited to:
- Building and annotating cultural datasets using AI and deep
learning approaches;
- Theory-driven humanities research, simulations and generative
models;
- Document-based modelling of historical and social processes;
Cultural analytics.
Submission guidelines
Submissions must be anonymized, written in English and formatted according
to the ACH LaTeX template
<https://c2s.sciencesconf.org/data/pages/ach_latex_en.zip>. An Overleaf
template
<https://www.overleaf.com/latex/templates/ach-proceedings-paper-
template/znmzmfngrwpd>
is also available.
We particularly welcome:
- Long papers (up to 3000 words, excluding references, abstract,
tables, and illustrations): for original and previously unpublished works
presenting a completed or well-advanced research.
All accepted papers will be published as a dedicated volume in the Anthology
of Computers and the Humanities <https://anthology.ach.org/>.
In addition, submissions can also be accepted for:
- Posters (between 750 and 1000 words): long abstracts describing
an early-stage research, a work-in-progress, a corpus, a software or late
breaking results;
- Lightning talks: 5 minutes presentation on ongoing or recently
published research. The submission takes the form of a short abstract (300
words), with a reference (in case of recently published research).
Authors of selected posters and lightning talks will be offered the
possibility to turn their submissions into long papers to be included in
the proceedings, if they so wish.
Important dates (AoE)
Deadline for submissions: 16 February 2026
Notification of acceptance: 16 March 2026
Final camera-ready version: 6 April 2026
Organizing committee
Jean-Baptiste Camps (CJM, ENC-PSL)
Florian Cafiero (CJM, ENC-PSL)
Suzanne Mpouli (PSL CultureLab)
Chahan Vidal-Gorène (CJM, ENC-PSL)
--[2]------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 2026-01-20 11:37:50+00:00
From: Nick Hopwood <ndh12@CAM.AC.UK>
Subject: Peer review, past, present … and future: Aileen Fyfe at the Cambridge Philosophical Society on Monday 16 March
Notice of a widely relevant talk in the Cambridge Philosophical Society
series:
Peer review, past, present … and future, by Professor Aileen Fyfe
<https://www.cambridgephilosophicalsociety.org/events/event/prof-aileen-fyfe>
Cambridge Philosophical Society Lecture
Monday 16 March 2026, 18:00–19:00
Bristol-Myers Squibb Lecture Theatre,Yusuf Hamied Department of
Chemistry, University of Cambridge
Abstract
Research evaluation is a familiar element of modern science, and peer
review is one of the favoured ways of doing it. But peer review has not
always been so central to academic reputations; nor has it always
functioned as it now does. This lecture will draw upon my team’s
research in the archives of the Royal Society of London to explore how
evaluation has changed over the last 250 years, to explain the present
crisis and to discuss options for the future. The Royal Society has
published scientific journals since 1665. It was one of the first
institutions to develop written refereeing processes, which began to be
used at the Philosophical Transactions in the 1830s and later at
the Proceedings and other journals. The Society’s unrivalled archives
shed light onhow decisions were made – and by whom, and why – before and
after the introduction of written refereeing. During the twentieth
century, ‘peer-reviewed publications’ acquired a privileged status. The
increasing importance assigned to refereeing accompanied
professionalisation and increased competition. The growth of science,
demographic changes and internationalization have also posed challenges
for our ongoing use of an evaluation practice that originally developed
in the context of a closed, gentlemanly community. What should the
future of peer review look like?
Speaker biography
Aileen Fyfe is Professor of Modern History at the University of St
Andrews and one of the world’s leading experts on the history of
scientific journals. Her research investigates the history of academic
publishing from the seventeenth century to the present day. She was
lead-author of /A History of Scientific Journals: Royal Society
publishing, 1665-2015/ (2022, open access), and has written numerous
articles investigating the financial models underpinning the production
and circulation of scientific journals, their editorial and reviewing
processes, and the role of learned society publishers. She is regularly
invited to share her expertise with funders, policy makers and
publishers’ trade associations, thus contributing to public and policy
debates about the future of academic publishing. She was lead-author of
the widely-cited briefing paper /Untangling Academic Publishing: a
history of the relationship between commercial interests, academic
prestige and the circulation of research/ (2017, open access).
Earlier in her career, she wrote about the history of science
popularisation and publishing in nineteenth-century Britain, including
books on the Religious Tract Society (2004) and steam-powered publishing
(2012). Once upon a time, she studied Natural Sciences at Cambridge.
More information
<https://www.cambridgephilosophicalsociety.org/events/event/prof-aileen-
fyfe> and
booking (recommended but not essential)
Full programme
<https://www.cambridgephilosophicalsociety.org/events> of CPS events
this term
--[3]------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 2026-01-20 11:07:56+00:00
From: Rodolfo Garau <rudigarau@YAHOO.IT>
Subject: cfp: Francis Bacon 1626–2026: Four Centuries of Thought, New Horizons for Research - UTN, 12-13 June, 2026
CfP: Francis Bacon 1626–2026: Four Centuries of Thought, New Horizons
for Research
University of Technology Nuremberg (UTN), 12–13 June 2026
On the occasion of the four-hundredth anniversary of the death of
Francis Bacon (1561–1626), this international conference aims to
reassess Bacon’s philosophical, scientific, literary, and cultural
legacy, as well as the complexity of his reception across early modern
Europe.
The conference is organized by Dana Jalobeanu and Rodolfo Garau at
the University of Technology Nuremberg (UTN), thanks to the generous
support of a grant from the Thyssen Stiftung.
The conference brings together scholars working in Bacon studies and
related fields, including early modern philosophy, the history of
science, and literary studies, among them Peter Anstey, Claudia Dimitru,
Mordechai Feingold, Daniel Garber, Vera Keller, Silvia Manzo, Alan
Stewart, Claire Crignon, Richard Serjeantson, Oana Matei, Angus Vine,
Grigore Vida, and Cesare Pastorino.
In addition to these invited contributions, we invite submissions for
up to four additional papers, to be selected through this Call for Papers.
We welcome proposals related (but not limited) to themes such as Francis
Bacon beyond the philosophical/literary divide; the relationship between
method, metaphysics, and natural history in Bacon’s thought; Bacon’s
engagement with early modern experimental philosophy; his connections
with medicine, law, politics, and rhetoric; the European reception of
Bacon in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; Bacon and empiricism,
including comparative perspectives; and Bacon’s influence on later
philosophy, science, and literature.
Applicants are asked to submit, by February 20, 2026:
An abstract of no more than 500 words
A short biographical note
Submissions should be sent using the following form:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdQqGnbf6XSVNXaEl0JdPt_NsHhYvIbc8B9pT2W
4MHUa3OVUA/viewform?usp=header
Although we particularly encourage submissions from early-career
researchers and postdoctoral scholars, all papers will be considered by
the scientific organizers.
For further information, please contact the organizers at
rodolfo.garau[…]utn.de / daniela.jalobeanu[…]utn.detn.de
--[4]------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 2026-01-15 12:57:18+00:00
From: Digital Humanities Potsdam <digital-humanities@uni-potsdam.de>
Subject: CCLS 2026: Call for Posters (deadline: 03.03.2026)
Dear colleagues,
The 5th Annual Conference of Computational Literary Studies 2026
<https://jcls.io/site/ccls2026/> (CCLS2026) will take place on 28–29 May
2026 in Potsdam, Germany, and will include a poster session.
Poster proposals should be within the scope of the /Journal of
Computational Literary Studies/ (JCLS) <https://jcls.io>, as defined in
the journal's current Call for papers <https://jcls.io/site/cfp/>, and
be unpublished. They could discuss work in progress, exploratory
research, new projects, negative results / error analysis or tool demos,
but should always have a scholarly argument. Abstracts should be 300-400
words plus references.
We encourage submissions from all colleagues working in the field of
Computational Literary Studies, including students and early career
scholars.
Deadline for Submissions: *3 March 2026 / *Notification of
Acceptance: 16 March 2026
Proposals must be submitted via email to info@jcls.io. More details are
available at this link: https://jcls.io/site/ccls2026/poster-call/.
We look forward to your submissions!
Best regards,
the CCLS2026 organising team
--[5]------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 2026-01-15 09:57:26+00:00
From: Nathalie Aussenac-Gilles <nathalie.aussenac-gilles@irit.fr>
Subject: [2nd CFP] 1st International Workshop on Quality in Large Language Models and Knowledge Graphs
Call for submissions
1st International Workshop on Quality in Large Language Models and
Knowledge Graphs
In conjunction with EDBT/ICDT 2026
QuaLLM-KG @ EDBT/ICDT 2026
24 March 2026, Tampere, Finland
Website: https://quallmkg2026.github.io/
New deadline: January 25th AoE
---
Goal
QuaLLM-KG aims to bring together researchers and practitioners working
on quality issues at the intersection of large language models and
knowledge graphs. The workshop focuses on theories, methods, and
applications for assessing, improving, and monitoring the quality of
LLMs and KGs.
Important Dates
- Submission deadline: January 25th, 2026
- Notification: February 8th, 2026
- Camera-ready: February 20th, 2026
Topics
Quality in Knowledge Graphs
- Accuracy, consistency, completeness, freshness
- Schema validation, constraint checking, error detection
- Entity resolution, link prediction, ontology alignment
- Provenance, explainability, trust in KG data
- KG quality in dynamic and large-scale settings
Quality in Large Language Models
- Hallucination reduction & factual grounding
- Bias detection and mitigation
- Metrics & benchmarks for quality assessment
- Uncertainty estimation, calibration, interpretability
Synergies Between KGs and LLMs
- KG-based grounding and fact-checking for LLMs
- LLM-based KG enrichment, extraction, entity linking
- Quality-driven prompting and fine-tuning
- Hybrid KG–LLM architectures for quality assurance
- Evaluation frameworks for integration and consistency
Benchmarks and Evaluation Frameworks
- Datasets and metrics for KG & LLM quality
- Tools for monitoring, validation, maintenance
- Reproducibility, transparency, responsible AI
Applications and Case Studies
- Scientific, industrial, enterprise use cases
- Quality at scale
- Human-in-the-loop quality control
Submissions
We invite submissions of full papers (up to 8 pages, excluding
references) and short papers describing work in progress, systems,
demos/systems/applications,
or vision/innovative ideas (up to 4 pages, excluding references).
Submissions should be in the CEUR-WS proceedings template.
Accepted papers will be published in the CEUR Workshop proceedings
(CEUR-WS.org).
Workshop Organizers
- Soror Sahri, Université Paris Cité, France
- Sven Groppe, University of Lübeck, Germany
- Farah Benamara, IPAL-CNRS, Singapore & University of Toulouse
========================
Farah Benamara Zitoune
Professor in Computer Science, Université de Toulouse
IRIT and IPAL-CNRS Singapore
118 Route de Narbonne, 31062, Toulouse.
Tel : +33 5 61 55 77 06
http://www.irit.fr/~Farah.Benamara
==================================
--[6]------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 2026-01-14 22:11:34+00:00
From: Diane Jakacki <dkj004@bucknell.edu>
Subject: Extension (9 February) for poster slam submissions to DH 2026 (Pedagogy and Training SIG)
Extension: CFP for DH 2026 Workshop
DH Pedagogy and Training SIG
Extension
We are extending the deadline for submissions to the poster slam at DH 2026
for the DH Pedagogy and Training SIG. Please submit proposals by Monday,
February 9. Accepted participants will now be notified no later than 28
February.
Please see below for the details.
Overview
The DH Pedagogy and Training SIG (https://adho.org/dh-pedagogy-and-training/)
will hold a Pedagogy Poster Slam at the 2026 DH Conference in Daejeon,
South Korea. The Pedagogy Poster Slam will take place during the SIG’s
reserved slot during one of the conference’s two workshop days, either
Monday, 27 July 2026, or Tuesday, 28 July 2026.
Posters will either focus on a) a specific assignment for a DH or
DH-inflected course or b) an entire course. During the workshop,
participants will first participate in the Slam, where they will have a
maximum of 120 seconds to discuss one aspect of their assignment or course.
Once the participants have all spoken, the rest of the workshop will be
devoted to a conventional poster session, where attendees can engage with
the presenters at their posters. Presenters will be encouraged to bring
print copies of their assignment/syllabus to distribute to attendees.
All conference attendees will be welcome to attend the workshop and slam.
(Plus, there will be food!)
Call for Proposals
The SIG Conveners invite all members of the DH community to submit
proposals for the Pedagogy Poster Slam. Proposals will include
-
150 words or fewer about the context of the assignment, course, or
workshop
-
200 words or fewer about the assignment, course, or workshop
-
An upload of either the assignment or the course syllabus
Proposals should be submitted via the following Google Form:
https://forms.gle/zdkNEHXPDppXQz3E6.
Proposals are due by 9 February 2026 5 January 2026. Accepted participants
will be notified not later than 28 February 2026 5 February 2026.
Proposals will be peer reviewed by the SIG Conveners.
N.B. Please be aware that posters submitted to the pre-conference SIG
Pedagogy Poster Slam are distinct from the DH2026 poster submission
category. The Program Committee for DH2026 has indicated that you are
welcome to submit posters to both the main conference as well as to this
SIG workshop, although the submission format is significantly different.
Depositing Posters
Following the Conference, the SIG Conveners will create and curate a
collection of the posters and associated pedagogical documents.
Questions
Please contact the conveners with any questions you may have.
Brian Croxall (brian.croxall@byu.edu), Diane Jakacki (dkj004@bucknell.edu)
and Walter Scholger (walter.scholger@uni-graz.at)
--
Diane Jakacki, Ph.D.
Digital Scholarship Coordinator
Affiliate Faculty in Comparative & Digital Humanities
Bucknell University
diane.jakacki@bucknell.edu
(she/her)
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7836-1223
Chair, TEI-C Executive Board
Fulbright Canada Research Chair in Digital Humanities, 2022-3
--[7]------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 2026-01-14 20:24:52+00:00
From: Nick Hopwood <ndh12@cam.ac.uk>
Subject: Reminder: CFA: 'Problems of Growth', Ischia Summer School on the History of the Life Sciences, 28 June – 5 July, Ischia, Italy
A reminder that the deadline for applications is Friday 27 February 2026
Call for applications: please circulate
Problems of Growth
Nineteenth Ischia Summer School on the History of the Life Sciences
Biblioteca Antoniana, Ischia, Italy, 28 June – 5 July 2026
Applications are invited for this week-long summer school, which provides
advanced training in history of the life sciences through lectures, seminars and
discussions in a historically rich and naturally beautiful setting. The theme
for 2026 is 'Problems
of Growth’. The deadline is Friday 27 February 2026.
Organizers: Christiane Groeben (Naples, local organizer), Nick
Hopwood (Cambridge), Erika L. Milam (Princeton), Staffan Müller-
Wille (Cambridge) and the Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn
Confirmed faculty: Daryn Lehoux (Queen’s, Canada), Dániel
Margócsy (Cambridge), He Bian (Princeton), Patrick Anthony (Uppsala), Alison
Bashford (UNSW), Hannah Landecker (UCLA), Edna Suárez-Díaz (UNAM), Sabina
Leonelli (TU München)
For funding we are most grateful to Cambridge HPS, Cambridge Intesa Sanpaolo
Fund, George Loudon, Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn, Dohrn Foundation, Science
History Institute, Centro Etnografico delle Isole Campane, Center on Science and
Technology at Princeton University and
the Italian Society for the History of Science.
More information: <https://ischiasummerschool.org/theme>
About the school
The Ischia Summer School on the History of the Life Sciences provides advanced
training in a lively international field that offers a long-term perspective on
some of the most significant ideas, practices and institutions in the world
today. The school, which
has a tradition of association with the Naples Zoological Station, was revived
in 2005 after a break of two decades and has run every other year since then
other than during the coronavirus pandemic. We can accommodate up to 26
graduate students and postdoctoral
fellows. The event provides a structured learning experience plus extensive
opportunities for participation and interaction. English is the working language
and we encourage exchange of ideas across disciplinary boundaries, national
cultures and historical
periods. Spending the week on an island, staying in the same hotel and sharing
breaks and meals maximizes opportunities for exchange. These are enhanced
through social events, including a welcome reception and a day trip to Naples,
the morning spent learning
about the history and current research of the Station, the afternoon free for
sightseeing. There will also be a free afternoon to explore Ischia itself.
Introduction to the theme
Growth affords hope and attracts fear. Balanced growth feeds populations, fuels
prosperity and imparts purpose to individual and collective lives. The
unfettered growth of cells, pathogens, parasites and populations threatens
physiological,
economic and ecological collapse. Even balance may be a problematic ideal: norms
of flourishing and beauty have guided discrimination by vaunting harmonious over
retarded, excessive or monstrous growth. The sustainability of life on Earth,
attempts ‘to change
the story of cancer’ and the politics of human diversity: growth is at the heart
of them all. Yet compared with other vital processes, notably inheritance,
development and reproduction, growth in the life sciences has lacked status and
attention. This summer
school provides an opportunity to explore knowledges and practices of growth
between antiquity and the present day while bringing together problems usually
kept apart.
For Aristotle, vegetative growth was the lowest function of the soul and for
that reason fundamental to plants, beasts and humans. Unlike fire, vegetative
growth had a natural limit. Where minerals grew by external
accretion or juxtaposition, living beings had the distinctive ability to expand
by assimilation of nutrients from the inside out, whether organ by organ or from
a preformed seed. Surgeons tried to remove those tumours, cankers and warts that
resulted from
an imbalance of humours among other causes. Generation, which was hard to
imagine in mechanical terms, was often framed as a special form of growth. Late
medieval philosophers brought together generation, projectile movement and the
accumulation of capital
as sharing the same basic problem, how a movement severed from its mover could
continue to produce. In a balanced world, gain in one part was compensated by
loss elsewhere. Large animals, according to Aristotle, produced fewer offspring,
and the relative growth
of one organ entailed the diminution of another. At Italian universities during
the Renaissance, these ancient ideas were taken up and reformed by scholars
including Girolamo Fabrici d’Acquapendente, Andrea Cesalpino and Marcello
Malpighi in attempts to reground
the systematic study of nature and naturalize growth and development.
By contrast, it seems, modern approaches to growth, in biology as in economics,
aimed for an overall increase—in size, in number of individuals and in
productivity. As the ultimate source of economic progress the
physiocrats postulated an inherent capacity of nature to reproduce. Naturalists
like Lazzaro Spallanzani located the same reproductive and regenerative
capacities in minute parts that made up animal bodies. But proper growth was
also reckoned to occur within
certain limits. In the principle of population Thomas Robert Malthus expressed
the limit set for the potentially geometric growth of human numbers by the
merely arithmetic growth of food supplied from the land. More generally, in the
hands of the population
biologist Raymond Pearl the S-shaped curve came to capture the colonization of a
new space, with slow initial acceleration towards exponential growth and then
deceleration as environmental resistance increased and the ‘carrying capacity’
was reached. Based
on computer simulations of the catastrophic consequences of runaway population
and economic growth, the Club of Rome’s bestselling report The Limits to
Growth (1972) is a point of origin for debate over ‘degrowth’ and ‘sustainable
growth’.
Classical discussion of growth within organisms had been informed by the canons
of beauty appropriate to each stage of life, with more attention to proportion
than size. Beginning in the eighteenth century, longitudinal
measurements of human growth aligned with demands for military manpower and
projects of social reform. Measurement fed debate over the roles of heredity and
environment. On the one hand, anthropometry ultimately produced distinct growth
equations for groups
defined by age, sex and race. Unbalanced growth was associated with monstrosity
and other ways of falling short of the white, male model. On the other, failure
to grow became an index of deprivation, most obviously, as physiologist Angelo
Mosso argued, in
the stunting of factory children. Eugenicists, notably criminologist Cesare
Lombroso, were concerned with imbalance at the level of populations.
Standards justified clinical intervention in pathologies of growth. James
Tanner, who led the Harpenden study into growth through puberty into adulthood,
pioneered the treatment with growth hormone of children who
looked set to miss out on the advantages of height. Since the 1980s ultrasound
measurements of fetuses have identified growth restrictions on an ever larger
scale. Yet even after major surveys from Turin to Nairobi, it is controversial
to what extent the standards
should be universal or tailored to demographic groups.
In the nineteenth century the knotty issues involved in defining individuals
that were explored productively at the Stazione Zoologica di Napoli made growth
hard to distinguish from maintenance and reproduction.
An influential formulation held that reproduction represented growth beyond the
individual limit. From the 1860s embryonic development was discussed in terms of
the differential growth of parts. Inspired by D’Arcy Thompson’s On Growth and
Form (1917),
Julian Huxley set an agenda with Problems of Relative Growth (1932) and the
notion of allometry, or the shape-changing growth of a part at a different rate
from the organism as a whole. Mechanisms could be studied in ontogeny or
changing patterns traced
in phylogeny. In a famous essay, ‘On being the right size’, J.B.S. Haldane
proposed that ‘Comparative anatomy is largely the story of the struggle to
increase surface in proportion to volume’: more complicated forms enable the
larger sizes that maintain body
temperature at lower metabolic rates.
Within a species, tissues and organs must somehow ‘know’ when to stop growing.
The cell theory framed organismal growth as the division and expansion of these
elementary parts. Cancer, the disease that made biomedicine,
came to be understood as a pathology of malignant growth. Research elucidated
factors, not least growth factors, notably nerve growth factor discovered by
Stanley Cohen and Rita Levi-Montalcini, that promoted, regulated and interfered
with cell division. Alongside
chemotherapies, weedkillers were developed that acted by causing rapid,
uncontrolled growth. Synthetic auxins, the hormones that regulate cell division
and expansion in plants, became notorious as the defoliant Agent Orange used by
the British in the Malayan
Emergency and the United States in the Vietnam War.
This sketch raises large questions. Should understandings and practices of
growth be seen as having first sought balance, then promoted unlimited increase
before recognition of the costs of growth called the whole
framework into question? Or did gospels of growth acknowledge the need for some
balance? Should we grasp growth as a modern or capitalist imperative, a
potentially relentless power and a creative one through the transformation of
quantity into quality? Or
is a reason for its neglect in reflection on the life sciences (as distinct from
economics and agronomy) that growth implies mere increase in size or number
while the truly remarkable changes have seemed to result from qualitative
alterations? Reflexively,
reservations about growth apply to knowledge, too; simply accumulating data has
seemed inadequate when we might need a whole new paradigm. A long-term theme and
implicated in urgent problems, growth in and around the life sciences provides a
rich field for
historical deliberation and for trade between disciplines.
Programme
The school starts with registration and a reception on the afternoon of Sunday
28 June, and ends after dinner the following Saturday night. Departure is on
Sunday 5 July. Lectures last for up to 30 minutes in one-hour slots, leaving at
least 30 minutes for
discussion. Seminars focus on pre-circulated texts. Groups of students will
prepare each one with the seminar leader.
Daryn Lehoux (Queen’s, Canada)
Lecture: Aristotle on nutrition, growth, residues and seed
Seminar: The ‘faculty’ of growth in Galen
Dániel Margócsy (Cambridge)
Lecture: Soil, vermin and ghosts: The limits to growth in agriculture and
medicine in early modern Europe and Indonesia
Seminar: Humans and horses: Theorising size in early modern European Medicine
He Bian (Princeton)
Lecture: Growth and regeneration in early modern Chinese thought
Seminar: Growing empire, coining new names: Manchu as a language for flora and
fauna nomenclature
Patrick Anthony (Uppsala)
Lecture: Toward a history of extractive sciences—and the end of the mineral
frontier
Seminar: From bio-geography to necro-geography: Sciences of life and death
during the Circassian genocide
Alison Bashford (UNSW)
Lecture: Growth, limits and the afterlife of Malthus
Seminar: Fertility decline and modernity’s great deceleration: Where is
reproduction/population in degrowth scholarship?
Hannah Landecker (UCLA)
Lecture: The butcher’s philosophy: Transmuting knowledge of life into knowledge
of growth in modern agriculture and medicine
Seminar: Practical approaches to working with visual documents: Exploring cases
and patterns in an industrial trade journal archive
Edna Suárez-Díaz (UNAM)
Lecture: Geographies of malnutrition: The clinic, the lab and the committee
Seminar: Traditions of knowledge and intervention: Studying malnutrition and
mental development in the land of Zapata
Sabina Leonelli (TU München)
Lecture: Growing data crops: Extractivism and agriculture
Seminar: Colonial trends in agricultural data sharing
Public lecture: Intelligenza ambientale: Come usarla per salvare il pianeta
Cost
The fee for students is €400 each, which includes hotel accommodation and all
meals for the week. Students need to pay for their own travel to
Ischia. The directors will consider requests to waive the fee for accepted
students unable to raise the money themselves,
when supported by a detailed financial statement and a letter from their
department head.
Applications
Applications should be sent by email to <administrator@ischiasummerschool.org>
and should include, please:
• a statement specifying academic experience and interest in the course
topic (max. 300 words),
• a brief CV,
• a letter of recommendation.
The deadline for applications is midnight CET on Friday 27 February and
applicants will be notified of the outcome by 13 March 2026.
--[8]------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 2026-01-14 18:31:50+00:00
From: Simona Frenda <simona.frenda@gmail.com>
Subject: 2nd Call for paper: The Information Disorder Workshop
The Information Disorder Workshop
Collocated with LREC 2026 in Palma de Mallorca, Spain
https://information-disorder-workshop.github.io/
* February 17: Paper submission
* March 17: Notification of acceptance
* March 30: Camera-ready submission
* May 12, 2026: InDor at LREC!
Online disinformation is a pressing challenge for our societies. Its role
in influencing elections (Allcott & Gentzkow, 2017) and behaviours (van der
Linden et al., 2020) has gathered the attention of different societal
actors aimed at mitigating its negative impact.
The Natural Language Processing (NLP) community is contributing to fighting
this phenomenon with a growing number of datasets (Hussain et al., 2025)
and technologies (VeraAI, AskVera, Bellingcat) (Lupi et al., 2023; Wuhrl et
al., 2023) for the automatic recognition of fake news. However, this field
of research suffers from a lack of a common theoretical framework, which
causes a fragmentation of approaches. The increasing attention of the NLP
community to human-label variation (Plank, 2022) raises additional
challenges regarding the cross-cultural and pragmatic implications that
determine the spreading of disinformation (Dabbous et al., 2022).
The goal of the Information Disorder (InDor) workshop is to promote an
interdisciplinary and intersectorial discussion towards the development of
NLP research on disinformation.
Information Disorder is a recent framework introduced by Wardle and
Derakhshan (2017) to organize theories, definitions, and approaches for the
study of disinformation.
The framework is characterized by two main pillars: 1) acknowledging the
need to categorize fake news under a finer-grained taxonomy of disorders
(mis-information, dis-information, and mal-information); 2) exploring the
role of the contextual factors that determine the spreading of fake news.
InDor aims to
- Define a common theoretical ground for the research on disinformation in
NLP and beyond
- Discuss the cultural factors determining subjectivity to disinformation
- Promote interdisciplinarity in the development of datasets and models
- Discuss the impact of real-world applications to contrast disinformation
The InDor workshop (half-day duration) will be co-located with the
fifteenth biennial Language Resources and Evaluation Conference (LREC) held
at the Palau de Congressos de Palma in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, on 11-16
May 2026.
Submissions
When submitting a paper from the START page, authors will be asked to
provide essential information about resources (in a broad sense, i.e. also
technologies, standards, evaluation kits, etc.) that have been used for the
work described in the paper or are a new result of your research. Moreover,
ELRA encourages all LREC authors to share the described LRs (data, tools,
services, etc.) to enable their reuse and replicability of experiments
(including evaluation ones). In addition, authors will be required to
adhere to ethical research policies on AI and may include an ethics
statement in their papers.
The papers should be submitted as a PDF document, conforming to the
formatting guidelines provided in the call for papers of the LREC
conference. Templates are provided here https://lrec2026.info/authors-kit/
We accept three types of submissions:
- Regular research papers;
- Non-archival submissions: like research papers, but will not be included
in the proceedings;
- (Non-archival) research communications: 1-page abstracts summarising
relevant research published elsewhere.
InDor will also accept submissions that have been rejected from ACL rolling
review, provided they are accompanied by their reviews, and they fit the
topic of the workshop.
Research papers (archival or non-archival) may consist of up to 8 pages of
content. Research communications may consist of up to 1 page of content.
Please make the submission here: https://softconf.com/lrec2026/InDor26/
Topics
We invite original research papers specifically on the following topics,
with a particular focus on resources, taxonomies, and benchmarks for the
evaluation of NLP systems on Information Disorder:
- new interdisciplinary theoretical proposals and foundational aspects
- surveys on Information Disorder
- multiculturality and multilinguality in datasets and technologies
- interdisciplinary computational methods and frameworks
- community- and user-centred approaches
- real-world applications to contrast false information
- experimental applications and projects for social good
- evaluation of Information Disorder-focused systems
- generative approaches to contrast false information
- participatory approaches
- positions on Information Disorder
Submissions are open to all and are to be submitted anonymously (and must
conform to the instructions for double-blind review). All papers will be
refereed through a double-blind peer review process by at least three
reviewers, with final acceptance decisions made by the workshop organisers.
Scientific papers will be evaluated based on relevance, significance of
contribution, impact, technical quality, scholarship, and quality of
presentation.
Attendance
At least one author of each accepted paper is required to participate in
the conference and present the work, in-person or online.
Workshop organisers:
Simona Frenda, Heriot-Watt University
Marco Antonio Stranisci, University of Turin
Shaina Ashraf, Phillips University of Marburg
Ioannis Konstas, Heriot-Watt University
Usman Naseem, Macquarie University
Contact us at s.frenda@hw.ac.uk if you have any questions.
Website: https://information-disorder-workshop.github.io/
--[9]------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 2026-01-14 16:54:06+00:00
From: Chiara Palladino <chiarapalladino1@gmail.com>
Subject: Deadline Extended - AI and the Study of the Ancient Near East
Editors are pleased to announce an extension of the deadline for
submissions to the collection *From bits of history to bytes of data: AI
and the study of the ancient Near East *– Nature Humanities & Social
Sciences Communications.
Editors: Mark Altaweel, Katrien De Graef, Shai Gordin, So Miyagawa, Chiara
Palladino
***Extended Deadline**: **August 13, 2026***. Submissions will be reviewed
and published on a rolling basis.
Full CFP and submission link: https://www.nature.com/collections/ibaaacccci
<https://eur01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nature.co
In the past decades, the study of the ancient and pre-modern world has
experienced enormous change, thanks to the exponential growth of digital
technologies. These resources enable the computational study of ancient
landscapes, materials, and texts, and they reshape our ability to
understand ancient human experiences. The use of digital tools and
computational methods, such as generative AI, is increasing in the
humanities and studies of the human past. We are now witnessing a
qualitative shift in how these technologies are reshaping fundamental
research questions and methodological frameworks.
This collection aims at examining the computational and digital study of
“greater Western Asia” and its epistemological implications. Embracing the
Eastern Mediterranean, North Africa, the Middle East or even “Eurasia”,
this area represents the longest continuously known historical and
archaeological record, as it stands at the crossroads between cultural,
linguistic, and material traditions that span at least three modern
continents and four millennia, with no clear-cut boundaries. At the same
time (and perhaps for this reason), the disciplines that study these areas
share common challenges.
We invite contributions that consider one or more of the following
methodologies for the digitization or computational study of ancient data,
while answering or providing case studies to dive into epistemological
questions:
- 3D documentation and visualization of artifacts (e.g. in extended reality
environments)
- Ancient language processing and computational linguistics
- Digital database design and implementation
- Digital paleography and epigraphy
- GIS and spatial analysis
- Paleogeography and Paleoenvironment
- Population history and DNA
- Graph theory and network analysis
- Knowledge organization and linked data systems
The contributions should reveal how digital methodologies are not just
tools but gateways to deeper questions about human organization,
creativity, and cultural transmission in the ancient world. They should
showcase how the true power of digital approaches lies not in the
technology itself, but in its ability to illuminate the richly textured
fabric of ancient human experience.
For any questions, please feel free to get in touch with me or the other
editors.
Dr Chiara Palladino (she/her)
Assistant Professor, Digital Humanities and the Ancient World
How to pronounce my name
<https://www.name-coach.com/chiara-palladino>
Department of Classics and Ancient History
Durham University
--[10]------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 2026-01-13 15:24:08+00:00
From: Joanna Byszuk-Podsadniuk <joanna.byszuk@ijppan.pl>
Subject: 2026 EADH Conference
Dear Colleagues,
We are happy to invite you tothe European Association for Digital
Humanities 2026 conference, which will take place from 15 to 19
September 2026 at Jagiellonian University in Kraków (Poland), and is
co-organized by the Digital Humanities Lab of the Jagiellonian
University and the Institute of Polish Language of the Polish Academy of
Sciences.
Under the theme “Linking Europe: Digital Humanities Without Borders”,
the event invites the international Digital Humanities community to
reflect on technological transformations, from artificial intelligence
to multilingual infrastructures, sustainability, and responsible data
governance.
Submissions are open for posters, short papers, long papers, and
workshops. The thematic areas include: data and methods, AI and ethics,
infrastructure and open science, cultural heritage and diversity,
communities and futures of DH. All conference venues are fully
accessible, and online participation is available for presenters.
The deadline for all types of submissions is 23:59 AoE on Sunday, 8
February 2026.
You can find the full Call for Papers as well as other information here:
https://eadh2026.confer.uj.edu.pl/cfp
Proposals may be submitted via ConfTool:
https://www.conftool.net/eadh2026/index.php
On behalf of the organizers,
Joanna Byszuk-Podsadniuk
--
dr Joanna Byszuk-Podsadniuk
Pracownia Metodologiczna
Computational Stylistics Group Logo IJP <https://ijppan.pl> HR Logo
<https://ijppan.pl/logo-hr>
Instytut Języka Polskiego Polskiej Akademii Nauk
Institute of Polish Language Polish Academy of Sciences
al. Mickiewicza 31
31-120 Kraków
Phone +48 12 632 56 92 Phone-Internal 365
Email joanna.byszuk@ijppan.pl
Informacja dot. przetwarzania danych osobowych
<https://ijppan.pl/pl/polityka-prywatnosci/> | Privacy Policy
Information <https://ijppan.pl/en/polityka-prywatnosci/>
--[11]------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 2026-01-13 13:04:08+00:00
From: Franz FISCHER <franz.fischer@unive.it>
Subject: Editorial Case Studies from Goethe's Venetian Epigrams, January 15–16, 2026
International Workshop of the Stuttgart Research Centre for Text Studies
in cooperation with the Istituto Italiano di Studi Germanici, the Venice
Centre for Digital and Public Humanities, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice,
and the Goethe and Schiller Archive Weimar
Dear digital humanists,
The Venetian Epigrams – Critical Digital Edition project is hosting a
workshop at the Stuttgart Research Centre for Text Studies (SRCTS) on
January 15–16, 2026. The aim of this event is the open discussion and
collaborative analysis of selected editorial case studies from the
editorial workshop. The examples will be commented on and evaluated by the
staff of the VEdition at the SRC and the cooperation partners of the
Klassik Stiftung Weimar.
The discussion will focus on the following special cases:
- notebook H54, considered the first independent document of the Venetian
Epigrams,
- the heterogeneous travel diary H61, which Goethe brought back from his
journey to Silesia, and
- the collection of pages Ha
All of the aforementioned textual materials are characterized by an
extremely provisional and process-oriented nature: they consist of layers
of unstable drafts, notes, drawings, ambiguous arrangements, and complex
drafts that are difficult to reconstruct. This materiality presents a
particular challenge for editorial scholarship and requires, in addition to
the reconstruction of the content, the development of targeted
methodological and digital solutions.
The workshop serves as a forum for exchanging ideas on editorial
strategies, digital modeling, and textual interpretation—not only within
the context of the edition of the Venetian Epigrams, but also with regard
to other digital edition projects dealing with complex authorial textual
situations.
The event will be held in English and in German. Open to everyone.
Online participation via Webex:
https://unistuttgart.webex.com/unistuttgart/j.php?MTID=m990b48a0611cb63a974b2651
c5e83fff
When: January 15–16, 2026
Where: Stuttgart Research Centre for Text Studies, University of Stuttgart,
Azenbergstr. 12, 1st floor, Seminar Room
Organisation: Giulia Baldelli, Franz Fischer, Daniele Fusi, Claus Zittel,
Matteo Zupancic
More information:
Event:
https://www.srcts.uni-stuttgart.de/veranstaltungen/Editorische-Fallstudien-aus-
Goethes-Venezianischen-Epigrammen/
Project:
https://www.srcts.uni-stuttgart.de/abteilungen/hermeneutik/venezianische-
epigramme/
Documentation: https://vedph.github.io/gve-doc/
Contact: giulia.baldelli@ilw.uni-stuttgart.de
--
Franz Fischer
Head of Venice Centre for Digital & Public Humanities (VeDPH)
Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici
Università Ca' Foscari
Palazzo Malcanton Marcorà
Dorsoduro 3484/D - 30123 Venezia
https://www.unive.it/persone/franz.fischer
https://www.unive.it/vedph, https://www.i-d-e.de/
https://edizionicafoscari.unive.it/en/edizioni4/riviste/magazen/
https://edizionicafoscari.unive.it/en/edizioni4/collane/disclosing-collections/
--[12]------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 2026-01-13 12:14:50+00:00
From: Michael Piotrowski <michael.piotrowski@unil.ch>
Subject: [SUSPECTED SPAM] CfP: 3rd Workshop on Computational Methods in the Humanities (COMHUM 2026), Lausanne, Switzerland
CALL FOR PAPERS
3rd Workshop on Computational Methods in the Humanities (COMHUM 2026)
September 9–10, 2026 · University of Lausanne, Switzerland
Deadline for submission of abstracts: February 20, 2026
Special track: computation and video games
------
Academia and the humanities have never been more digital, which pushes digital
humanities to frontiers beyond computational approaches to humanities or the
application of humanities research methods to the digital. In this context, the
COMHUM workshop series positions itself as an international forum primarily
devoted to the following research questions:
(1) which formal or computational approaches can help address the particular
challenges posed by the growing presence of the digital in humanities, e.g.,
digital artifacts, software, LLMs, and computer-generated data? In these cases
and beyond,
(2) which methods are most appropriate to tackle the challenges posed by
humanities research and how can they be applied to concrete research questions?
The first day will be devoted to the specific topic of computation and video
games. This topic explores computational methods for analyzing video games as
well as humanities approaches to computation in video games. It has a number of
ramifications in a variety of disciplines, including software studies, critical
code studies, literary analysis, digital humanities, and game studies.
Topics in the special track include, but are not limited to:
- Methods for data extraction in video games (e.g. telemetry, assets, models,
code)
- Computational methods for video game analysis (including spatial,
representational and narrative aspects)
- Analyses of intersection of computational approaches and the study of video
games
- Humanities approaches to computation of video games (including software)
In the spirit of the previous editions of the COMHUM workshop, the second day
will be open to submissions on any topic pertaining to theoretical or applied
research on computational methods for humanities research broadly conceived.
Topics in the open track include, but are not limited to:
- Theoretical issues of formal modeling in the humanities
- Knowledge representation in the humanities
- Data structures addressing specific problems in the humanities (including text
and markup)
- Computational methods in the humanities (e.g., for language and literary
studies, historical studies, or multimodal data)
- Applications of computer vision, image analysis and spatial analysis in the
humanities
The program will consist of invited and contributed talks. The official
language of the workshop is English. Contributions can be submitted in English
or French.
-----
Submissions
We invite researchers to submit abstracts of 500 to 1000 words (excluding
references). Abstracts will be reviewed double-blind by the members of the
program committee, and all submissions will receive at least two independent
reviews.
-----
For details, please visit https://wp.unil.ch/llist/en/event/workshop-on-
computational-methods-in-the-humanities-2026-comhum-2026/
======
--
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Michael Piotrowski <michael.piotrowski@unil.ch>
Professeur en humanités numériques · Université de Lausanne
Section des sciences du langage et de l’information · Faculté des lettres
☎ +41 21 692-3039 · Quartier Chamberonne, bâtiment Anthropole, bureau 3137
OpenPGP public key 0x926877BF1614A044
--[13]------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 2026-01-12 16:30:45+00:00
From: Simone Rebora <simone.rebora81@gmail.com>
Subject: “Accessible Textual Heritage” Course – second Call for Applications
Dear all,
Applications for the Professional Development and Specialization Course
“Accessible Textual Heritage” are open until February 8th. The course
will take place at the University of Verona and online (blended mode) from
March 23, 2026, to April 30, 2026.
The course consists of 25 hours of training in the first week (March 23-27,
2026), with theoretical explanations and practical workshops, and the
completion of a final project, with presentation of the results to a team
of experts in the field (April 30, 2026).
The full program is available here:
https://daih.eu/assets/pdf/CPAP-ATH2026.pdf
The course is aimed at undergraduate and graduate students, PhD candidates,
research fellows, professors and teachers, public administration employees,
and professionals in archives, museums, and libraries.
Attendance requires a minimum of 70% in-person participation in the
lessons, with the possibility to listen to recordings at home. The course
can also be tailored to meet the specific academic or professional needs of
each participant.
The course has received the patronage of the Association for Digital
Humanities and Digital Culture (AIUCD) <https://www.aiucd.it/> and the Digital
Arena for Inclusive Humanities (DAIH) <https://daih.eu/>.
Instructors:
Simone Rebora (University of Verona), Giulia Grisot (University of
Manchester), Piergiovanna Grossi (University of Verona), and Marina Lehmann
(Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz)
Topics and Workshops:
- Accessible computing
- Basics of computational thinking
- Computational thinking with LLMs
- Accessible computational resources
- Accessible materials for computational analysis
- Accessible tools for computational analysis
- Accessible digital documents
- Accessibility standards and guidelines for digital documents
- Accessibility practices for textual and visual content
- Accessible research outcomes
- Introduction to storytelling for academic and nonacademic audiences
- Visualization as tool for accessible research outcomes
Recognition: Upon successful completion of the Professional Development
and Specialization Course, participants will receive a certificate and earn
6 ECTS credits.
Further information here:
https://www.corsi.univr.it/?ent=cs&id=1279&menu=home&lang=en
Main contact: simone.rebora@univr.it
Kind regards,
Simone Rebora
--[14]------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 2026-01-12 10:45:26+00:00
From: Elena Spadini <spadinielena@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Humanist] 39.226: events: workshop on APIs in re-use of editions and text (Zürich)
Dear colleagues,
This is a reminder for the workshop Re-Use of Editions and Text
Collections: The Role of APIs <https://workshop.resed.digitaleditions.ch>,
taking place on January 29 and 30 at the University of Zurich.
The deadline for registration is January 20.
During the workshop the participants will have a chance to learn what APIs
are and how to use specific APIs. They will also see different examples of
editions data re-use in other disciplines and have a chance to give input
on a draft guideline on data re-use and APIs for editions.
No technical knowledge is required!
Best wishes,
Elena Chestnova, Elena Spadini, Peter Dängeli and Yann Stricker
_______________________________________________
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