Digital Diasporas was the first conference of its kind to bring together to discuss on-going projects and also debate the theoretical, methodological, and pedagogical issues raised by the intersection of the fields of Digital Humanities and African American/African Diaspora Studies.
The goal of the conference was to address the increasing centrality of digitization to the archiving of materials, as well as the growth of digital technology in the teaching, scholarship and artistic production in the field of African American/African Diaspora Studies.
The schedule included a keynote address by Abdul Alkalimat (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), workshops on text encoding and navigating online resources in African American and African Diaspora Studies, panels and seminars with scholars and funders, a digital “poster” session, a book fair, and multi-media art installations and performances by artists and local performers Pamela Z and DJ Spooky.
Originally a MITH Fellowship project of Zita Nunes, Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literature, this conference emerged as a full-blown collaboration between MITH and the African American / African Diaspora Area Group of the English Department. It was sponsored by various UMD departments, as well as institutions and scholars from across the US:
- UMD Office of the Vice President of Research
- UMD Office of the Associate Provost for Equity and Diversity
- UMD Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities (MITH)
- UMD English Department
- UMD Offices of the Dean of Graduate Studies, Dean of Undergraduate Studies, and Dean of the Libraries
- UMD Student Affairs Office
- UMD David C. Driskell Center for the Study of the Visual Arts and Culture of African Americans and the African Diaspora
- UMD Consortium on Race, Gender and Ethnicity
- UMD Nyumburu Cultural Center
- WMUC Radio 88.1
- Johns Hopkins University Center for Africana Studies