Changing orders of knowledge? Encyclopaedias in transition

Call For Papers

Theme section: Changing orders of knowledge? Encyclopaedias in transition

To appear in the peer-reviewed journal Culture Unbound: Journal of Current Cultural Research

Guest editors: Jutta Haider & Olof Sundin, Department of Arts and Cultural Sciences, Lund University, Sweden

We are witnessing a transition period for encyclopaedias and encyclopaedic knowledge. Since the 1990s alone encyclopaedias have gone through several remediations: from printed volumes to CD-ROM, from CD-ROM to on-line editions on the web and most recently as smartphone applications. Nowadays encyclopaedic knowledge is produced, distributed and used largely within digital networks. Mobile devices make it always available, everywhere. While understandably a lot has been said about Wikipedia and from almost every angle, other contemporary encyclopaedias have not received that much attention in research. Yet they are two sides of the same coin. This theme section wants to contribute to changing the balance somewhat.