RMeS Winter School & Graduate Symposium 2024-25
Time: TBA
Where: Maastricht University
ECTS: 2 (two full days plus preparation 3 days)
Organized by: prof. dr Susan Schreibman, Dr Annika Richterich, Dr Monika Barget and RMeS
For: PhD candidates who are a member of RMeS
The RMeS winter school offers PhD candidates the opportunity to present their current work, and receive feedback from their peers and senior scholars. Presentations can be on any topic students are working on and would like to get feedback on, ranging from chapter and article drafts to research proposals. Students will as much as possible be matched with reviewers that have expertise on their topic.
Confirmed keynote speaker: Professor Lauren Klein (Emory University)
The Line Graph and the Slave Ship: Rethinking the Origins of Modern Data Visualization
“The Line Graph and the Slave Ship” returns to the eighteenth-century origins of modern data visualization in order excavate the meaning—and power—of visualizing data. Exploring two examples of early data visualization—the line graphs of British trade data included in William Playfair’s Commercial and Political Atlas (1786) and Description of a Slave Ship (1789) created and circulated by a group of British antislavery activists—this talk will connect Enlightenment theories about visual and statistical knowledge to contemporaneous ideas about personhood and race. By examining and re-visualizing the data associated with these charts, I will further show how data visualization always carries a set of implicit assumptions—and, at times, explicit arguments—about how knowledge is produced, and who is authorized to produce it. Placing this work in the context of a larger digital humanities project, Data by Design: An Interactive History of Data Visualization, coauthored with members of my research group, I will conclude with a consideration of the ethics of visualization in the present. Through a discussion of contemporary examples, I will show how data visualization can bear witness to instances of oppression at the same time that it can—if intentionally designed—hold space for what cannot be conveyed through data alone.
Biography
Lauren Klein is Winship Distinguished Research Professor and Associate Professor in the departments of Quantitative Theory & Methods and English at Emory University. She also serves as director of the Emory Digital Humanities Lab and PI of the Mellon-funded Atlanta Interdisciplinary AI Network. Before moving to Emory, she taught in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication at Georgia Tech. Klein’s research brings together computational and critical methods in order to explore questions of gender, race, and justice. She is the author of An Archive of Taste: Race and Eating in the Early United States (University of Minnesota Press, 2020) and, with Catherine D’Ignazio, the award-winning Data Feminism (MIT Press, 2020).
In addition: Lauren Klein will also give a workshop on the topic Data Feminism.
Practicalities
This Winter School will feature different types of sessions: 1) parallel sessions for presenting your work to peers 2) lectures by RMeS staff members and 3) a workshop on Academic Integrity.
- PhD’s are kindly asked to submit an abstract of their paper presentation. This may regard a chapter of your dissertation, a draft for an article, or a write-up of research results, which you would like to discuss with your peers. We will group your abstracts into panels, selecting panels on the basis of your theme/subject, approach and your level of advancement in the PhD track. If you want to be in a session with one or two of your peers (people whose judgment you value, or people you haven’t worked with yet) please feel free to indicate this on your abstract. We will then try to organize panels on the basis of your proposals. You will be assigned to peer-review one paper and to chair or respond to one paper in another session. A month before the Winter School starts, you will be asked to send in your full chapter or article, which will be peer-reviewed and responded to during the Winter School.
- Lectures: Professor Lauren Klwin
- Finally, this Winter School & Graduate Seminar will also offer a workshop on Academic Integrity.
Sign up for Winter School
If you are interested in participating and earning credit (both in EC and social credit from your peers), please
- Register for the Winter School before 15 December 2024 at the latest via our website. You will receive a confirmation email from our RMeS office.
- Please submit abstracts for individual presentations 3 January 2025. Abstracts for individual presentations are max 300 words, including a clear research question or thesis statement. Please indicate on your abstract whether you would like to be in a panel with specified other participants and/or whom you consider a suitable reviewer for your paper (although we cannot promise that all your wishes will come true…).
- You can opt for two formats in terms of paper submission:
- Those of you who are in the very early stages of your PhD, may also consider to hand in your PhD proposal, which will then be commented upon by your peers. (recommended to PhDs who have just started)
- Most PhD candidates will opt to hand in a chapter/article format: a full paper of approx. 5,000 – 6,000 words.
- Full papers of (or one of the above formats) are due by January 14, 2024. On the basis of your submissions, we will group the panels, assign reviewers and organize responses. We will distribute the papers to all panel-members and assign the tasks of writing a full peer review (1-2 pages long). Each of you will have to write one peer review.
- Presentations: During the Winter School, each participant will give a presentation of 5-10 minutes. Each presentation will receive a prepared peer review (in writing, handed in the same day, and a short oral summary of the review). Another panel member will be assigned as discussant/respondent. All session members engage in discussion and feedback.
PRACTICAL MATTERS
We invite you for drinks and dinner on Wednesday night at a restaurant in Maastricht; all participants and lecturers at this Winter School are invited to join. On both days, lunches, coffee and tea will be served at the university locations. As for accommodation, you are free to choose any accommodation you want. Please make all bookings yourself.
If you are not reimbursed for travel and/or accommodation by your own faculty, you can apply for remuneration from the RMeS travel-fund. Please send an e-mail outlining your request and including a preliminary budget to Chantal Olijerhoek at rmes@rug.nl. You will be notified if you qualify for financial assistance within 14 days.
