Black Studies – African American History, Culture & Digital Humanities

Taking Care: The Question of AR, VR, and Blackness

Jessica Lu — Mon, 08 Jul 2019 16:00:11 +0000

I can’t breathe. At once: the wheezing out of a severely singular experience. Yet and also: a hailing of the social, political, economic, and environmental phenomena surrounding Eric Garner’s loss of breath. My dissertation, On Black Breath: A Theory and Praxis, undertakes a partial genealogy of breath as it has been racialized within the

The post Taking Care: The Question of AR, VR, and Blackness appeared first on 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

The post Toward A Deeper Understanding of Digital Humanities Research in Black Studies appeared first on African American History, Culture & Digital Humanities.

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

The post Beyond Preservation: A Digital Intervention Into Theatre & Performance Studies appeared first on African American History, Culture & Digital Humanities.

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

The post Hip Hop Archives: How Academia Preserves Rap Music’s Legacy appeared first on African American History, Culture & Digital Humanities.

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

The post Of the Meaning of Progress: Digital Studies as Radical Praxis appeared first on African American History, Culture & Digital Humanities.

Of Wake Work and We Who Would Build: Centralizing Blackness in Digital Work

Catherine Knight Steele — Tue, 28 Feb 2017 16:09:41 +0000

When I began researching African Americans online seven years ago, the bulk of literature situated black users of online technology as mostly absent, lacking access, and in need of interventions to develop proficiency. This literature was very different than my experience with the robust black online communities I knew whose use of the digital was

The post Of Wake Work and We Who Would Build: Centralizing Blackness in Digital Work appeared first on African American History, Culture & Digital Humanities.