Learning Infrastructures in the Social Sciences and Humanities - Special Issue - Learning Inquiry - Deadline: May 15

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 to http://www.editorialmanager.com/linq/ Please contact 
the editor to discuss your paper and/or when you submit your paper.