Call for Papers

Annual Conference of the Association of Digital Humanities in German-speaking Countries, hosted by the University of Marburg

01 to 05 March 2027 in Marburg

Submission deadline: 01 August 2026

(Submissions via ConfTool)

Gaps are constitutive of knowledge. They mark lacunas, raise new questions and drive cognitive processes. This is particularly true for the digital humanities: where knowledge is digitally encoded, modeled and made computer-readable, translations, reductions and interstices necessarily arise. The transformation of analogue objects into data, models or digital representations creates gaps, as does working with materials that have already been born digitally and must first be recorded, structured, archived or curated before they become scientifically accessible.

The DHd 2027 focuses on these productive, problematic and responsibility-related  dimensions of gaps, uncertainties and differences. It asks how lacunas, practices, and procedures shape the digital humanities, as an epistemic prerequisite, methodological challenge, ethical responsibility, and starting point for new interpretations. The focus is on material and historical absences as well as algorithmic non-transparency, data gaps, modelling decisions and unequal access to knowledge and infrastructure.

Data related to human culture is often characterized by incompleteness: sources are damaged, lost, decontextualized or only fragmentarily preserved. At the same time, digitization and modeling are creating new forms of selection and simplification. Any form of representation, classification, or visualization relies on decisions about what is made visible, highlighted, or omitted. In particular, data-driven and AI-based processes raise questions about transparency, traceability, uncertainty and responsibility.

The motto Mind the Gap! also points to existing inequalities within digital knowledge production. Despite the democratizing potential of digital technologies, there are still significant differences in access to data, tools, infrastructures, and publishing opportunities, depending on geographical, institutional, social, or other positionality. The conference therefore also wants to create space for discussions about participation, responsibility and sustainable developments in the field of digital humanities.

We invite contributions from all areas of the digital humanities as well as related disciplines. Submissions on the following topics are particularly welcome:

• Gaps and uncertainties in historical, cultural and material traditions
• Provenance, fragmentation, decontextualization, and missing metadata
• Modelling vagueness, uncertainty and ambiguity
• Limits and selection processes in digitization, data modelling and annotation
• The “digital dark field” and questions of non-digitization
• Black-box issues, AI methods, and eXplainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI)
• Knowledge gaps and biases in training data of large language and image models
• Digital reconstructions and the handling of speculation and evidence
• Uncertainties in visualization, aggregation and presentation of scientific results
• FAIR, CARE and data ethics issues
• Anonymization, pseudonymization and deliberate omissions of sensitive data
• Data literacy, education and infrastructural inequalities
• Postcolonial perspectives and responsibility in the handling of cultural data
• Mixed methods, AI and hermeneutics
• Networking of GLAM institutions and digital research infrastructures
• Reflections on the role of the digital humanities in socially and technologically uncertain times

The conference understands “gaps” not only as deficits, but also as productive spaces for reflection, interpretation and criticism. If knowledge is not understood as a completed product, but as a constructive process, then uncertainties, gaps and differences are central prerequisites for scientific findings.

The DHd 2027 invites you to discuss these areas of tension together and to develop perspectives on responsible, reflected and sustainable digital knowledge production.

Formalities:

The following formats can be submitted:

Presentations (submission of at least 1500, maximum 2000 words)

Presentations in the Doctoral Consortium (submission of at least 500, maximum 750 words)

Panels (minimum three, maximum six participants, one submission of at least 1200, maximum 1500 words)

Poster (submission of at least 500, maximum 750 words)

Pre-conference, half-day or full-day workshops (submission of at least 1200, maximum 1500 words)

To submit, you must register in ConfTool and submit a dhc file created with FidusWriter for review (FidusWriter is currently being set up and will be available starting in early June. Instructions on how to use FidusWriter can be found on the conference website). In addition, a short summary of the submission of approx. 100–150 words must be entered in ConfTool. The submissions, which have the character of regular, permanently citable small publications, will be published both in the Zenodo community of the DHd (individually and in the conference publication) and together with the short summaries on the conference website and in the conference programme. 

The deadline for submissions expires on 01.08.2026 (23:59, CEST). Please note: As in previous years, this deadline will not be extended.

The review of submissions is carried out according to an open peer review process, in which the names of the submitters and reviewers are disclosed to each other (so-called open identities), the reviews themselves are not published. A notification of whether the submission has been accepted is expected to be sent by early November. If the abstract is accepted, the submission of a publication-ready version that incorporates the review feedback is expected by December 5, 2026. If you have any questions about the submission, please send an e-mail to: dhd2027@uni-marburg.de.

The most important languages of exchange in the DHd community are German and English. Proposals can be submitted in German or English. We encourage all participants to present their contributions to the conference in German, but contributions in English are also welcome.

It is assumed that accepted contributions will be presented by the submitters in person and on site.

Each person may submit only one proposal for a presentation or poster (role: ›Presenter in ConfTool‹) and only give one presentation. Co-authorship is possible for a maximum of two further submissions (presentation or poster). In addition, each person can be involved in a maximum of one panel submission. Workshop submissions are not covered by this restriction. Each DHd working group also has the opportunity to submit an additional submission (workshop, panel, poster), which must be marked as such. In the case of submissions with multiple submitters, it is recommended to identify the role(s) of the submitters according to the CRediT taxonomy (https://credit.niso.org/) in a footnote at the beginning of the submission (in the form: “Contributor Roles: First_name_1 Last_name_1 (Conceptualisation, Writing – original draft), First_name_2 Last_name_2 (Software), First_name_3 Last_name_3 (Writing – review & editing).“).

A submission for a scholarly presentation usually has references, which are listed at the end in a bibliography and are not counted toward the length of the text. All other words (including e.g. image captions) are counted.

A good submission follows the principles of good scientific work and describes the research question, material, method and results in a structured way in terms of content and form. Please note that your submissions should be small but full-fledged scientific publications that can be published accordingly. If you are unclear about the form of submission, we recommend taking a look at successful examples from the last conference: The Book of Abstracts for DHd2026 gives an overview of accepted presentations, panels, posters and workshops. In addition, it is advisable to take a look at the handout for the review process of the DHd annual conferences.

Possible formats:

Individual presentations (20′ presentation + 10′ discussion; Submission of at least 1500, maximum 2000 words): Unpublished results or developments of significant new methods or digital resources and/or a methodological or theoretical concept should be presented. Presentation submissions should contextualize the research contribution in an appropriate manner against the background of the state of research and make clear its significance for the (digital) humanities or a respective sub-field of it. Submissions for presentations must explicitly be assigned to one of the focuses “Tool/Resource”, “Theory/Meta-reflection/Position Paper”, “Method”, “Computational Analysis/Interpretation”, or “Open Field” at the time of submission. For projects for which no interim results are yet available, the poster format is intended.

A final version of accepted presentation submissions of a maximum of 2,500 words must be submitted by 05.12.2026, taking into account the review feedback

Presentations in the Doctoral Consortium (submission of at least 500, maximum 750 words): The promotion of young academics is a special goal of the annual DHd conference. For this reason, presentations can be submitted separately to a Doctoral Consortium to present dissertation projects of selected participants. In addition to the opportunity to present one’s own research topic, feedback from the professional audience can also be obtained in order to further develop one’s own doctoral project thematically and methodologically. The focus is on the initial phase of the doctorate. Doctoral candidates with advanced projects are therefore encouraged to submit individual presentations (see above).

Exposés (500–750 words, plus bibliography) on the Doctoral Consortium can be submitted until 01.08.2026 in the usual way via the ConfTool as a contribution of the type (conference track) “Doctoral Consortium”. The submitters of the best exposés will be invited to the Doctoral Consortium. For them, the participation fee for the conference is waived.

In addition, it is planned to award travel grants to presenters and participants who have little or no financial resources available for their own positions and projects by raising funding. Participants in the Doctoral Consortium will also be able to apply for these travel grants. A separate call will be published for the travel grants.

Panels (minimum three, maximum six participants incl. moderator; panel of 90′ with a maximum length of 30′ for statements; Submission of at least 1200, maximum 1500 words): Panels offer three to six participants the opportunity to discuss a topic that goes beyond the scope of a single project, project network or research location. Panels should not consist exclusively of participants in a joint project. In particular, it is encouraged to submit panels related to the conference topic and to give the audience the chance to discuss controversial topics. Care must be taken to ensure that a panel is composed according to diversity criteria. It is expected that no more than a third of the 90-minute session will be prepared statements and that the debate within the panel will leave enough time for discussion with the audience. The panel organizers submit a short description of the topic of at least 1200, a maximum of 1500 words and confirm the willingness of the listed persons to participate in the panel. For the acceptance of a panel submission, the stringent presentation of the thematic or methodological context of the individual contributions is of decisive importance.

Posters (submission of at least 500, maximum 750 words): Posters can be submitted on any topic of the Call for Papers. They can also describe the status of individual projects. The posters will be published together with the submissions in the Zenodo Community of the DHd Association under a CC-BY license. Posters that are accepted for the presentation must therefore be submitted by the presenters as a file via ConfTool by 28.02.2027 at the latest. Further information on the procedure will be communicated to the poster presenters after acceptance.

Pre-conference workshops (half day/4 h to two half days/8 h incl. breaks[4] ; Submission of at least 1200, maximum 1500 words): In addition to teaching, continuing education and training formats or tutorials (e.g. on specific topics, technologies, tools, key qualifications), collaborative forms of work on topics and/or data (e.g. hackathons, barcamps, tool testing) as well as longer meetings of DHd working groups geared towards a predefined output can also be submitted. Workshops last half a day (4 hours, incl. break) or two half days (7–8 hours, incl. breaks) and will take place on Monday and Tuesday of the conference week. Submissions must include the following information:

• Title and a short description of the topic (minimum 1200, maximum 1500 words), the full contact details of all contributors, and a paragraph about their research interests
• Format details
• Information on the target audience, in particular on necessary prior knowledge
• The number of possible participants
• Information on any technical equipment required
• The call for papers specific to the workshop, if one is published