Women’s History Review, a journal which provides a forum for a variety of approaches to women’s history is seeking articles for a special issue to be edited by Mary Spongberg and Paula Hamilton.

Women’s History, Memory and the Digital Turn

Perhaps more than any single factor in the twenty-first century, the digital turn in the Humanities has changed the way in which historians research, write and disseminate history. We are calling for papers based on digital history projects that chart some of these new directions relating to women’s history and memory. We are also interested in essays which address the now inseparable relationship between research in the archive and historical writing as well as future historical records available for the study of women and gendered aspects of these newly constituted digital sources.

Underpinning these concerns is the question of how understandings of women’s history have changed since the digital turn. Our scope is a broad one – we welcome proposals that discuss method, tools, process, practice, dissemination and pedagogy in women’s history in the digitized 21st century. Subjects may include:

• The rise of digital scholarly communities and the possibilities these pose for mega and multinational collaborations
• The gender of the digital archive: how do institutions prioritise records for digitization? Are sources central to women’s history considered as part of these programs? What particular issues might arise with the digitalization of archives pertaining specifically to women’s lives?
• the politics of databases-what gets preserved? who gets to use it? How do we find out about them?
• How the digital changes the relation between libraries, archives and scholars
• The new possibilities offered by the digital turn for research dissemination via open access, social media, scholarly blogging etc
• The digital and the use and reproduction of non-discursive sources
• Will this new technology change the nature of historical scholarship and what will this mean for historians of women?
• What new skills will historians need as we embrace digital archives for our research and pedagogy?
• New understandings of material culture: are virtual objects related to women’s history being made readily available by museums?

Please send a 300-500 word proposal for an article by Friday January 31st 2014 to Mary.Spongberg chez uts.edu.au or Paula.Hamilton chez uts.edu.au

The completed essay will need to be submitted by end of September 2014