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:
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@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@mit.edu.