Digital Editing Now

In recent years, there has been a significant shift in scholarly culture and funding strategies towards digital formats for edition projects. This is driven by the potential for new forms of production, presentation and access that the digital promises. And it involves a reassessment of the conventions that have determined editorial practice in the age of print. With a number of digital edition projects underway or recently completed in Cambridge — projects of different scales, working on varied materials and across a range of disciplinary frameworks — this is a propitious time to gather interested parties together to exchange ideas about the state of digital editing and its future potential. This conference will also provide the opportunity to ask critical questions about the limits of the digital. How should we place ourselves relative to fundamental issues of authority/openness, durability/fluidity? Can we establish a set of ideal types for digital editorial method, or would its optimal strengths rather lie in more hybrid forms, including a productive mode of cohabitation with the print formats that it appears to want to supersede?