[Sigtis-l] CFP: Learning Infrastructures in the Social Sciences and Humanities

[jeremy hunsinger]

apologies for x-posting, distribute as appropriate -jh

CFP: Learning Infrastructures in the Social Sciences and Humanities

Special issue of the journal Learning Inquiry (http://www.springerlink.com/content/120592/ 
)
Edited by Jeremy Hunsinger
Papers Due: May 15th 2009
Please contact the editor to discuss topics at jhuns.(@)vt.edu (remove  
brackets)

In the last 20 years, the learning infrastructures of the social  
sciences and humanities have transformed dramatically toward a more  
plural set of practices, methods, systems, and tools. In this issue,  
we are looking for contributions from social informatics, humanistic  
informatics, cultural informatics, digital humanities, internet  
studies, design research, media studies, and related fields dealing  
with the learning infrastructures. I am seeking papers that deal  
empirically, analytically and/or critically with the learning  
infrastructures in the social sciences and humanities.  
Cyberinfrastructures, physical infrastructures and organizational  
infrastructures have been transformed through the politics, economics,  
and technologies surrounding our learning infrastructures.

Learning infrastructures are part of professors and students scholarly  
experiences everyday. These infrastructures are part of how students  
begin their engagement with the social sciences and humanities and  
perhaps become part of how they maintain that engagement throughout  
their lives. Beyond our professors, departments, centers and  
institutes, our learning infrastructures are mediating our  
disciplinarity and interdisciplinarities to our students. In short,  
learning infrastructures are a part of how students learn to be  
scholars in various disciplines and citizens in the world-at-large.

Part of the debate surrounding learning infrastructures in the social  
sciences and humanities is the over/under-definition and over/ 
underdetermination of terms such as learning and infrastructure in  
disciplinary and interdisciplinary discourses. In this CFP, I want to  
encourage papers that help to define and critically engages those terms.

Possible topics:
• Transformation of institutions in relation to learning infrastructures
• New methods, new understandings in the social sciences and  
humanities related to learning infrastructures
• New disciplines, interdisciplines and transdisciplines and learning  
infrastructures
• Political economics of learning infrastructures
• Ethics, norms, and politics surrounding learning infrastructures
• Openness and/or closedness in learning infrastructures
• Social/Cultural/Informatics informatics and learning infrastructures
• New directions for learning infrastructures based on social sciences  
and humanities
• Cultural environmentalism and learning infrastructures
• Knowledge/Design ecologies and learning infrastructures

Review process will be double blind peer review following editorial  
selection.   We expect to place fewer than 8 papers in this special  
issue. We would prefer papers between 4000-16000 words. Papers should  
be submitted tohttp://www.editorialmanager.com/linq/ Please contact  
the editor to discuss your paper and/or when you submit your paper.