Digital Humanities – African American History, Culture & Digital Humanities

Transformational Intersections

Jessica Lu — Tue, 14 May 2019 16:36:00 +0000

As an extension of AADHum’s 2017-2018 Conversation Series, “Transformational Intersections: Digital and Public Humanities” explores how the digital humanities create, perceive, and interact with cultural heritage. Universities, museums, and other cultural institutions’ exploration of technology and new media are changing the ways communities engage with history. How can we create similar impacts for historically,

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Making the Digital Physical: AADHum’s “Intentionally Digital, Intentionally Black” Conference

Jessica Lu — Wed, 31 Oct 2018 16:03:33 +0000

The following post has been reprinted with permission from the author, Ravynn K. Stringfield, from Black Girl Does Grad School. To view in its original form, please click here. Following the opening session of University of Maryland’s African American History, Culture and Digital Humanities’ (AADHum) “Intentionally Digital,

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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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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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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

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