Saturday, June 16, 2018

Black Panther, Riri Williams, and Hip-Hop Variant Digital Collections



I was recently writing about the digital collections and activities I organized around books by Octavia Butler and Frederick Douglass. In some respects, I became inspired to produce these collections based on my comic book collection. This past week, I shared my comic book digital collections with students in the African American Literatures and Cultures Institute.

For the last couple of years, I've organized activities with tablets to showcase an array of comic book covers. I've shown the covers of the 25 variants of Black Panther #1, an array of images of Riri Williams, who played Ironheart, and select images from Marvel's Hip-Hop Variants. The comic books contain such visually striking covers that I was inclined to organize and share images of them with students. I produced short audio compositions to provide some context as well.

student browsing digital collection on comic book character Riri Williams

The uses of digital collections are part of my continuing effort to experiment with ways of introducing students to large bodies of artistic compositions in a single sitting. Like, how do we use digital technologies to expand what students are capable of seeing in the classroom?

Related:
A Notebook on African American Literatures and Cultures Institute

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