ATNU Virtual Speaker Series - Ellen Forget - 2023-03-29

Our next speaker in the ATNU Virtual Speaker Series is Ellen Forget (University of Toronto) who will talk to us about "Reading Digital Braille and Working with Braille Digitally". 

Join us on Wednesday 29 March 2023 at 5pm UK time (BST). (We will send the zoom link to all registered attendees shortly before the event.)  

"Reading Digital Braille and Working with Braille Digitally"
Ellen Forget (University of Toronto) 
Wednesday 29 March 2023
5pm (BST) [4pm UTC, 12pm EDT -- Check Your Timezone]

If you missed this talk there is a recording of it available at this link. 

Abstract:  

Braille is the most commonly used tactile code to represent language. Many visually impaired people rely on braille to access information, entertainment, and employment. Though sighted people often assume braille is used only in physical, tangible materials, braille is now most often accessed digitally with refreshable braille devices and screen reading technology.

Though braille was invented in 1824 and has been growing in use since then, braille materials are under-studied in the humanities. Common humanities and digital humanities methods and tools used for other bookish materials cannot necessarily be applied directly to braille materials, which likely accounts for the lacuna in academic study of braille.

This two-part talk will discuss how visually impaired people access braille digitally and what we can do to make our online materials more accessible to digital braille, and how digital humanities and textual studies methods can be adapted to work with braille materials digitally

Bio: 

Ellen Forget (el-in for-jhay) is a PhD candidate at University of Toronto in the Faculty of Information and the Book History and Print Culture specialization. Their dissertation research focuses on accessible book production, primarily braille. Ellen’s other research interests include speculative fiction publishing, indie publishing, and digital humanities. They also work as a freelance editor specializing in speculative fiction and academic books and articles.

Last modified: Wed, 05 Apr 2023 16:59:38 BST