On the occasion of the 700th anniversary of Dante Alighieri’s death, the journal Aldus 2.0 wants to dedicate a monographic issue to the Florentine poet. The aim is to critically investigate the links between Digital Humanities and the poet’s works, as well as research possibilities offered by the exegetical approaches implied by the use of new technological tools.
The use of online applications is now a common and pervasive practice globally, both in facilitating and redefining accessibility to manuscripts, printed texts, ancient and modern commentaries, archival and library materials. Therefore, the journal aims not only to celebrate Dante as a poet, but also to highlight how and to what extent Digital Humanities have affected national and international Dante studies and the modus operandi of individual researchers. For this purpose, three thematic sections have been designed to meet the heterogeneous research perspectives that emerged from the union between Dante and the digital world.
Saggi
The ‘Essay’ section will consider contributions concerning the vast relation between Digital Humanities and Dante studies. The authors could investigate this relationship by considering a wide range of cases, taking into account both the consequences that new technologies have on specific types of texts and more general and technical issues. Preference will be given to proposals related, but not limited, to the following thematic contexts:
how digital resources can contribute to the development and diversification of philological and critical studies on Dante and how computer science is affected by a textual tradition codified according to procedural schemes globally endorsed by the scientific community;
what are the limits and the risks of such hybridity and how they can be resolved (or controlled) in order to better define textual research;
what are the implications that a collective and unmediated access to Dante’s works online can have on the spread and/or on the reception of Alighieri’s lectio, from the advantages of massive circulation of information among heterogeneous users to the dangers brought about by less critical reflection in selecting open access material;
studies on digital textuality in relation to the figure and works of Dante, both in an academic context and with reference to community projects of divulgative nature;
critical examination of the current state of textual and iconographic digitization of manuscripts and printed texts of Dante’s works, including case studies and working strategies.
Projects
The ‘Projects’ section will host contributions aimed at examining digital products related to Dante’s world (websites, digital scholarly editions, databases, electronic archives, etc.), which will be included in a database of digital projects managed by Bembus. In the last few years, many projects of digitization and practical application of Digital Humanities theories to Dante’s heritage were set, whose outcomes fostered several reflections in the scientific community. In addition to Italian research groups, special attention should be paid to the initiatives of foreign universities and research centres which stand out for their varied and diversified proposals. By considering initiatives in this field of study (such as DanteSearch, Dante Medieval Archive, DanteSources and Dante Lab Reader), authors are asked to critically reflect on the range of actions taken by these initiatives, their influence on more traditional disciplinary sectors, the goals achieved and new objectives. Besides the most well-known web tools, authors are also invited to propose works dealing with unpublished or little-known projects in the field of Dante textual digitization.
Reviews
The ‘Reviews’ section will welcome short reviews of Digital Humanities canonical texts with special attention to the contribution of the DH in the study of Dante’s profile and literary style. Reflections related to single scientific articles or key texts in the modern technological debate, whose importance is widely acknowledged for having laid the foundations or opened new lines of investigation for philological analysis and criticism of Dante’s works, will be particularly welcome. A non-exhaustive list of titles to be reviewed can be found at https://aldus20.org/reviews.
We strongly encourage discussion of volumes which are not included in the list as long as they are related to the themes of the journal.
Proposals in compliance with the editorial rules of the journal must be uploaded on the online platform by January, 15, 2021, following the instructions outlined on Aldus 2.0 official website (https://aldus20.org/proposal). We accept proposals in Italian or English of a length between 15,000 and 60,000 characters including spaces (including notes and bibliography) for the ‘Essays’ section and a length of no more than 15,000 characters including spaces for the ‘Projects’ and ‘Reviews’ sections. For projects presented for the same section, you can also fill in an optional short form whose data will be included in a database of digital resources managed by Bembus.
For the ‘Essays’ section, preliminary assessment of abstracts is carried out by the board. Abstracts can only be sent via the official platform by January, 31, 2022. Acceptance of abstracts does not necessarily involve publication, which will be subjected to double-blind peer review. Following abstract acceptance, submission of articles must be completed by March, 31, 2021.
The selection of papers to be published will be carried out by a scientific committee composed of national and international experts and will comply with double-blind peer review standards.
Deadline for submission of abstracts (only for the ‘Essays’ section): January, 31, 2022.
Deadline for submission of articles (for all sections and for accepted abstracts for the ‘Essays’ section only): March, 31, 2021.
Guest editors. Beth Coggeshall (Florida State University), Akash Kumar (Indiana University).
For more information, please email info@aldus20.org.