Wednesday, September 23, 2015

#FrederickDouglass: Technology & African American Literary Studies



Despite the broad range of studies devoted to Frederick Douglass and his Narrative, almost no scholarship concentrates on how we might utilize technology to deepen our understanding of Douglass’s life, his writings, and his connections to African American literary and black diasporic studies in general. More broadly, there is a lack of scholarship on black artistic writing and digital humanities. More work must be done in order to fully realize the ways that technology can enhance our engagements with a figure like Douglass.

Between now and March 2016, we – a diverse group of scholars all of whom focus on African American literature – are producing a series of interrelated blog entries and social media posts concentrating on Douglass. The project is designed to highlight some of the ways that scholars might utilize new technologies and social media to advance understandings of African American literary art. At the same time, the contributors are participating in an exchange of ideas that will publicly showcase the possibilities of collaboratively producing knowledge in the field.

Ultimately, our focus on Douglass, black poetry, rap artists, pedagogy, blogging, and text-mining will assist in pinpointing the convergence of technology and African American literary studies. The contributors to the project include Elizabeth Cali, Jeremiah Carter, Kenton Rambsy, Erin Ranft, and me.

We plan to present our findings as a group at the College Language Association conference in April 2016. In the meantime, we'll post short writings on Douglass here.

Entries:
2016
• February 21: More on Frederick Douglass's use of "Man" in the Narrative by Kenton Rambsy and Howard Rambsy II
• February 11: The Frederick Douglass books by Howard Rambsy II 
• February 11: Frederick Douglass and Teaching by Erin Ranft
• February 10: “Man,” “Covey,” and top 10 words in Douglass Narratives by Kenton Rambsy and Howard Rambsy II 
• February 9: Frederick Douglass, a 19th-Century Tummler by Elizabeth Cali

2015
• November 6: Quantifying Frederick Douglass’s Notorious Mr. Covey by Kenton Rambsy and Howard Rambsy II
• November 1: Word count and Frederick Douglass's Narrative by Kenton Rambsy and Howard Rambsy II 
• October 12: Notes on the critical work on Frederick Douglass by Jeremiah Carter
• September 29: Naming and Comparing Overseers by Jeremiah Carter
• September 23: Frederick Douglass and Negro Digest/Black World by Howard Rambsy II
• September 23: The Re-emergence of Douglass during the 1960s by Kenton Rambsy and Howard Rambsy II
• September 16: Frederick Douglass and the sorrow songs by Jeremiah Carter
• September 5: A partial timeline of memoirs & autobiographies by black men by Jeremiah Carter

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