CfP: LLC Special Issue on Computational Models of Narrative

[Mark Finlayson]

Call for Papers
===============
Special Issue on Computational Models of Narrative
===============
Literary & Linguistic Computing: The Journal of Digital Scholarship in 
the Humanities

**Submissions due Friday, September 27, 2013**

Edited by:
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Mark A. Finlayson, MIT, USA (lead editor)
Floris Bex, University of Groningen, The Netherlands
Pablo Gervás, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain
Deniz Yuret, Koç University, Turkey

The past fifteen years has seen a resurgence of interest in a formal 
understanding and computational applications of the phenomenon of 
narrative. Since 1999 there have been more than forty conferences, 
workshops, symposia, and other meetings focusing on applying 
computational and experimental techniques to understanding, using, and 
generating narrative. Researchers across the humanities, social 
sciences, cognitive sciences, and computer sciences have turned their 
attention back to narrative, and are eager to make progress. With this 
momentum, the coming decade promises dramatic advances in the 
understanding of narrative.

With this growing interest and building momentum in mind, Literary & 
Linguistic Computing: the Journal of Digital Scholarship in the 
Humanities (LLC) invites submission for a special issue on the topic of 
“Computational Models of Narrative”.  The issue is so named because we 
believe that a true science of narrative must adhere to the principle 
espoused by Herbert Simon in his book The Sciences of the Artificial: 
that without computational modeling, the science of a complex human 
phenomenon such as narrative will never be successful, and that 
computational models are the proper lingua franca of the scientific 
study of narrative. The purview of the issue, then, is more than just 
the limited body of effort that directly incorporates computer 
simulation: it also includes work from a cognitive, linguistic, 
neurobiological, social scientific, and literary point of view.  The 
special issue is open to any work where the researchers have 
successfully applied their field’s unique insights to narrative in a way 
that is compatible with a computational frame of mind. We seek work 
whose results are thought out carefully enough, and specified precisely 
enough, that they could eventually inform computational modeling of 
narrative.  As such, authors should explicitly discuss in their paper 
how their work could support or inform computational modeling.

Full papers should not normally exceed 9,000 words. Shorter articles 
(containing material of a more general nature) should not exceed 5,000 
words and reports on research in progress should not be longer than 
3,000 words.  Authors  should review and conform to the following 
guidelines:

Information for authors: 
http://www.oxfordjournals.org/our_journals/litlin/for_authors/index.html
Online submissions: 
http://www.oxfordjournals.org/our_journals/litlin/for_authors/online_submission.html
Self-archiving policy: 
http://www.oxfordjournals.org/access_purchase/self-archiving_policye.html

Authors should submit their papers in .doc format (per LLC preferences) 
to Mark Finlayson, the lead editor, at markaf at mit.edu by 27th September 
2013. After this initial submission the editors will signal any major 
problems with style or content.  Revised versions addressing these 
concerns will be due as an online submission to the LLC manuscript 
system on Friday, November 22, 2013. When submitting to the LLC online 
system, authors should explicitly state in their cover letter to the LLC 
editor that their paper is part of this thematic issue. Papers will then 
be peer-reviewed, and final decisions will be issued Friday, February 
14, 2014.  The final copy, including all style and content corrections 
indicated by the editors, will be due Friday, March 14, 2014.  We expect 
the issue to appear as either the 2nd or 3rd issue of the 2014 volume. 
Any questions should be addressed to Mark Finlayson at markaf at mit.edu.