Catherine Knight Steele – African American History, Culture & Digital Humanities

Toward A Deeper Understanding of Digital Humanities Research in Black Studies

Catherine Knight Steele — Thu, 10 May 2018 18:33:48 +0000

Fresh off the completion of a bachelor’s degree in African American Studies, I was introduced to the intersection of Black Studies and the digital humanities through AADHum. Hearing about the initiative at the start of my doctoral coursework triggered immense curiosity. Digital humanities has its own wow factor; there are shiny new applications and ultra-modern

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Reimagining the Lives of Black Soldiers Wives and Widows in Post-Civil War America

Catherine Knight Steele — Wed, 25 Apr 2018 14:47:07 +0000

My book project, Her Claim for Pension is Lawful and Just, chronicles struggles of black women seeking benefits from the United States government on the basis of their standing as the wives and widows of the men who served in the Union army during the Civil War. By employing the resources and digital tools learned

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A (Re)Energizing Pedagogical Approach: Engaging Digital Tools to Teach African American Literature

Catherine Knight Steele — Fri, 30 Mar 2018 13:01:23 +0000

As an AADHum Scholar, one of my goals is to strengthen the connection between my research and teaching of 20th and 21st Century African American Literature. Drawing on work by Orrie Flores, David Green, Adam Banks, Bryan Carter, and Phill Branch, I have always encouraged my students to participate in literature through the creation of

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Beyond Preservation: A Digital Intervention Into Theatre & Performance Studies

Catherine Knight Steele — Wed, 14 Mar 2018 15:29:26 +0000

When New York University established the first Performance Studies department in 1980 and, subsequently, incorporated the discipline into theatre departments, it caused a lot of anxiety about theatre’s permanence within the academy. Over time, Theatre and Performance Studies have found a way to happily co-exist with one another, demonstrating how controversial conversations within these two

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“Huddles” and Hurdles: A Feminist Scholar’s Introduction to Black DH”

Catherine Knight Steele — Wed, 14 Feb 2018 14:42:18 +0000

It seems that everyone has a different opinion about the “right way” to “do” feminism. The argument about “what constitutes feminism” is being taken up everywhere and by everyone—from the Merriam-Webster Dictionary to Emma Watson. Rather than untangling these arguments here, I propose that these conflicting opinions indicate that we all can and should be

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Understanding More by Seeing More: Reflections on Digitizing the AFL-CIO Archive

Catherine Knight Steele — Mon, 29 Jan 2018 17:29:59 +0000

How can the turn to the digital transform the archive into an active platform for creating, preserving, and transmitting knowledge? This is the question at the center of my research - and why the George Meany Memorial Archives records on Civil Rights in the US fascinate me. They help me see how archives can

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Hip Hop Archives: How Academia Preserves Rap Music’s Legacy

Catherine Knight Steele — Wed, 29 Nov 2017 19:39:18 +0000

AADHum’s final digital humanities incubator session last semester, entitled “Representing Movement”, explored how we can use GIS to document travel and movement. To prepare for the Incubator, the AADHum team decided to construct ea series of maps based on the lyrics of some of Atlanta’s most well-known rappers. We were motivated by an interest

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Of the Meaning of Progress: Digital Studies as Radical Praxis

Catherine Knight Steele — Tue, 03 Oct 2017 16:56:24 +0000

Recently much of my heart, energy, and time have been consumed by the madness unleashed by white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in August, protesting the removal of a Robert E. Lee Statue. I felt the same way the month before when a national news story broke about the discovery of Sally Hemings slave

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Confronting “the Witness”: Encoding Archives of Black Lives

Catherine Knight Steele — Tue, 25 Jul 2017 15:33:06 +0000

As a rhetorician, I am trained to analyze public discourse and the history of ideas. My critiques focus on “progressive” ideas—like freedom—that are leveraged by the state to codify exclusion, surveillance, and dehumanization of blackness and black people. As a graduate assistant to the AADHum initiative, I am exploring how I can engage with

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Civil Rights and Worker Rights: Digitizing Labor Archives

Catherine Knight Steele — Tue, 02 May 2017 13:00:02 +0000

Throughout the Spring 2017 semester, AADHum has been working to explore, digitize, and make accessible portions of the George Meany Memorial AFL-CIO archives, housed in the University of Maryland's Special Collections. Guided by a thematic focus on black labor, migration, and artistic expression, Graduate Assistant William Thomas reflects on his experiences, as well as the potential

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