In order to provide an opportunity for the critical discussion of digital methods and resources in legal history, and in order to learn about the vast array of such methods and resources, the Max-Planck-Institute for European Legal History invites contributions to its Conference on "Digital Methods and Resources in Legal History" on 19/20 March 2020.
Interested researchers are welcome to present collections, databases, gazetteers and similar resources of relevance to legal history, but also to show how these or other resources, and how digital methods in general have been put to use in concrete project contexts. Note that we explicitly invite reports about research questions, projects or approaches that have failed to find or create digital means to work with in a satisfactory manner, too.
Some of the questions that could be discussed are the following:
• What insights in legal history have been made possible by the use of digital methods and resources?
• How do you integrate digital methods with hermeneutical and narrative aspects of your work?
• How are popular digital methods of analysis applied in legal history?
• What aspects of texts and objects are particularly relevant for legal history and how can they be modelled and processed in digital approaches?
• How do data-driven methods differ from other approaches in legal history?
• Which limitations did you encounter when trying to use digital tools or methods?
• Which digital resources are presently available, waiting to be exploited by legal history?
• Which resources are lacking?
The conference combines invited talks with an open Call for Papers/Posters, so when submitting, please indicate whether you intend your submission as a talk or a poster proposal.
The primary language of the conference will be English, but if you want to present in another language, please get in touch with us so we can discuss the options.
Please note that submissions will not be anonymized in the review process.
Requirements for talks
Submissions for talks should have a length of up to 1.200 words, excluding references. Please also add a short abstract (150-300 words) for publication with the preliminary program.
Requirements for posters
Poster submissions should have a length of up to 500 words, excluding references. There will be an opportunity to invite the audience to your poster during a poster slam. Please also add a short abstract for publication with the preliminary program.
Please submit your proposal by e-mail to dlh@rg.mpg.de by 2019-09-15
Contact, fees and administrative issues
There is no conference fee. For paper presenters, we will provide accommodation and reimburse travel costs according to the institute’s general guidelines. For poster presenters, we can provide reimbursement of up to 400 € for travel and accommodation costs, according to the institute’s guidelines.
For all questions and comments, you are very welcome to contact us by sending e-mail to: dlh@rg.mpg.de