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Digital Classics Association

SCS 2022 Call for Papers

“Distanced Classics in a Time of Plague: What Have We Learned?”

Contact: Neil Coffee, University at Buffalo, SUNY, ncoffee@buffalo.edu

Organizer: Neil Coffee, University at Buffalo, SUNY

The COVID-19 crisis that began in early 2020 forced substantial changes upon the field of classics. Instructors and students suddenly found themselves teaching and learning at a distance. Some classicists were separated from libraries and offices and so forced to rely on more heavily on digital resources to carry out their research.

Of course, a reliance on online research and teaching tools is not new to the COVID era. For decades, classicists have gone online to teach, collaborate, and access texts, secondary scholarship, search tools, and bibliographies.

Nevertheless, the forced shift to greater online teaching and research raises questions about traditional work patterns. How has the relationship between classicists and digital methods changed due to COVID conditions? What consequences have these changes had, and what, if anything, can we learn from them to improve our research, teaching, outreach, and the overall culture of the profession?

Abstracts are invited that address any aspect of these broad topics. Some possible specific questions include:

  • What has the COVID era shown to be the costs and benefits to our professional lives of working remotely?
  • With in-person library access restricted, what have we learned, if anything, about the need for open online educational and research resources? How has this experience differed for those with differing levels of library resources? What would the consequences be if COVID accelerates the existing shift among libraries to online resources?
  • Has distance learning resulted in changes in administration support for students, faculty, and departments in ways that have created new challenges (e.g, staffing reductions, requirements for in-person vs. remote instruction)?
  • Has limited access to offices and libraries induced researchers to turn to greater use or development of digital tools to fill a lack in their research?
  • What have we learned from the last year about the costs and benefits of teaching remotely? How does the success of remote teaching vary by subject (e.g., language instruction vs. non-language instruction), by program (undergraduate vs. graduate), or by other factors?
  • What has the graduate student experience been of the COVID-era changes in their graduate training?
  • How have instructors coped with the challenge of students who have not had safe, reliable, high-speed internet access?
  • Has outreach to groups traditionally underrepresented in classics been hampered by the inability to meet in person, inadequate internet access, or other COVID-related obstacles?
  • What have the consequences been for students and programs of the inability to conduct educational travel, such as study abroad programs to the Mediterranean? What role have online programs played in filling the gap in educational travel? What lessons have been learned for such experiential education in the future?

We understand that these circumstances affect instructors at different ranks and different institutions differentially. We hope to compose a panel that reflects the fullest possible range of experiences in our field.

Anonymous abstracts of no more than 400 words should be sent to digitalclassicsassociation@gmail.com, with identifying information in the email. Abstracts will be refereed anonymously in accordance with SCS regulations. Submitters should confirm in their emails that they are SCS members in good standing. Abstracts should follow the formatting guidelines of the instructions for individual abstracts on the SCS website. The deadline for the submission of abstracts is Friday, April 9, 2021.