Your Brain on Black Bibliography

At the “Networking Black Print” conference, I gave a presentation, “Your Mind on Black Bibliography,” where I discussed a clear-cut example, for me, of the value of Black bibliography, how a bibliography reshaped my approach to discussing African American literary studies. Rather than relying on the more commonly accepted phrase “the field,” I’m now more inclined to talk about subfields and the broader discipline of African American literary studies.

From Bibliographic Categories to Subfields 
I encountered Marcellus Blount’s “Studies in Afro-American Literature: An Annual Annotated Bibliography, 1983,” published in Callaloo. Blount’s bibliography, which includes an introduction, organizes entries into the following categories: “Interviews,” “General Studies,” “Studies in Poetry,” “Studies in Fiction,” “Studies in Drama,” “Studies in Autobiography,” and “Studies in Individual Authors.” I came across the piece while thinking through the limits of the term “field” to describe what appeared to me to be a more diverse and varied set of intellectual practices.

When we refer to African American literary studies as “the field,” we sometimes inadvertently flatten or downplay differences among various areas of study within the discipline. We also risk overlooking the distinct challenges that particular subfields face.

As a now long-time resident of St. Louis, I often compare African American literary studies subfields to neighborhoods. In this city, neighborhoods matter, with some faring better than others. I’ve also heard scholars speak about clusters of neighborhoods, how adjacent areas support and strengthen one another.

From Subfields to Bibliographers
Subfields operate in ways similar to neighborhoods. They have their own histories, their own strengths and weaknesses, and, notably, they receive unequal attention and resources.

As I thought more about subfields, I realized that all of them are, in part, sustained by bibliographers. In Author Studies, we have Richard Wright bibliographers and Toni Morrison bibliographers; in Period Studies, we have Harlem Renaissance bibliographers and Black Arts Movement bibliographers; and in Genre Studies, we have Neo-slave narrative bibliographers and Afrofuturism bibliographers.

A couple of years ago, I spoke with my students about an article I had recently completed on Malcolm X. I brought the books I used for the article to class. The guys were excited to look through them. Many of them, who had only encountered
The Autobiography of Malcolm X, were intrigued to see collections of speeches, biographies, art books, historical studies, and more.

From Bibliographers to Bibliographic Mapping
Moving from bibliographers, we might consider bibliographic mapping, a term I use to describe the work of organizing and tracing bodies of texts across time, genre, and format. These days, I’ve been assembling a bibliography of Black Panther books published between 2016 and 2026. I’m examining individual comic issues, trade paperbacks, hardcover editions, novelizations, and more.

From Bibliographic Mapping to Maps
That work has also led me from bibliographic mapping to actual maps. Early in his run on Black Panther, Ta-Nehisi Coates introduced a new map of Wakanda, which has circulated across multiple publications since 2016. In a sense, we can quite literally engage in bibliographic mapping of his map.

Related:

• A Notebook on the Networking Black Print Conference (April 2026)

The Beinecke vs. The Schomburg vs. The Private Collector

Collection Walter O. Evans

The drama began on the evening of April 9, 2026 at the “Networking Black Print” conference. And from there, it was on, the rumblings of a dynamic often left unspoken: the competition between collections and collectors.

First, during her presentation for the session “The Future of Black Print Collections,” Melissa Barton, curator of the James Weldon Johnson Memorial Collection of African American Arts and Letters at the Beinecke Library at Yale University, mentioned one of the institution’s holdings: an edition of God’s Trombones (1927) by James Weldon Johnson.

Next up was Joy L. Bivins, director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem, New York, who was also on the panel. She noted that she felt obligated to offer a follow-up to Barton’s presentation. Bivins pointed out that the Schomburg possessed a signed copy of God’s Trombones, an observation that subtly suggested whose collection might hold the edge.

Her remarks brought the competition between the Schomburg and the Beinecke’s Johnson Collection front and center. It was all in good fun, and nearly everyone in the audience laughed. The key word there is nearly.

At least one person didn’t laugh: the collector Walter O. Evans. He listened quietly and bided his time.

The next day, during his own session, Evans offered a set of counterpoints to both Barton and Bivins. He acknowledged what the Beinecke and the Schomburg held, and then emphasized that his own collection was more extensive, more accessible, and more personalized, with books by major figures that were not only autographed but often inscribed.

To illustrate his point, he held up a copy of God’s Trombones and noted that it was, in effect, a collaborative work by Johnson and Aaron Douglas, who provided the illustrations. He went further, referencing a 1941 image Douglas created as a tribute to Langston Hughes’s “The Negro Speaks of Rivers.” To see that image, Evans explained, you would need to bypass the Beinecke and the Schomburg and instead visit him and his wife in Savannah, Georgia—where they hold the original.

Heeey, this was something: an individual, not an institution, talking back to some of the most powerful cultural repositories in the country.

Later, on the same panel, rare book dealer Rebecca Romney made an important point. She noted that a financial boom in African American rare books occurred in the early 2010s, when the Smithsonian Institution entered the market aggressively, seeking to acquire materials for the National Museum of African American History and Culture, which opened in 2016. Savvy dealers understood that a major player like the Smithsonian would be willing to pay top prices, and the market adjusted accordingly.

It’s not uncommon for scholars to wonder which institution holds the largest or most valuable collection. Is it Yale? Emory? The Schomburg? Another major archive?

What was unusual was the presence of Walter O. Evans at the conference, an African American private collector participating directly in these conversations, offering perspective, and, at moments, issuing a quiet challenge. You don’t see that every day.

Related:

• A Notebook on the Networking Black Print Conference (April 2026)

Walter O. Evans and the Black Collector Vibe

Walter O. Evans sharing stories about his collection

One of the highlights of the “Networking Black Print” conference was the opportunity to hear from the legendary collector Walter O. Evans. For real, he was a whole vibe.

One origin story Evans shared about his collection begins in the early 1970s, when he traveled to Jamaica for medical training. That was the official reason for the trip. But he also had another, perhaps more meaningful goal: to meet Amy Garvey, the widow of Marcus Garvey, who he had learned was living there.

He met with her, spent time in conversation, and came away energized by the encounter. That moment shaped a practice he would extend over decades. As a surgeon, Evans had the financial means to collect books and art, and importantly, to cultivate relationships with renowned creators. Twice a year, for decades, he and his wife Linda hosted visual artists and literary figures, creating a space for exchange and community.

At the conference on April 10, Evans discussed several rare books from his collection, offering rich context for each item. The audience was drawn in. Notably, he paired his remarks with a slideshow of roughly 75 images from his collection. The combination of storytelling and rotating visuals of rare books and artwork was especially compelling.

Let me tell you something: you don’t usually attend a literature conference expecting such a riveting presentation from a book collector. Too often, we as literary scholars focus on interpretation and text-based analysis. Far less often do we encounter someone like Evans, who speaks from lived engagement with figures such as Romare Bearden, Margaret Walker, Jacob Lawrence, Ollie Harrington, and others.

Related:

• A Notebook on the Networking Black Print Conference (April 2026)

The Organizing and Anticipatory Work of Amanda Awanjo and Tajah Ebram

Tajah Ebram and Amanda Awanjo at the close of the Networking Black Print Conference

Considerable planning, logistical coordination, day-to-day management, and implementation of  the visions offered by co-directors Jacqueline Goldsby and Meredith L. McGill for the Networking Black Print Conference was done by Amanda Awanjo, Project Manager for the Black Bibliography Project, and Tajah Ebram, the Black Studies Subject Specialist Librarian at Rutgers, along with the Rutgers team.

Throughout the conference, people rightly thanked Jacqueline Goldsby and Meredith L. McGill, the project co-directors, for making the gathering possible. Goldsby and McGill, in turn, gave shoutouts to Awanjo and Ebram for their efforts, as well as the overall core team. 

In addition to acknowledging Goldsby, McGill, Awanjo, and Ebram for their leadership, I wish we were even better positioned to take stock of the full range of labor and, just as important, serious thinking required to pull off projects of this scale.

Roles like Project Manager and Team Lead, which Awanjo and Ebram occupy, are critically needed but not that common in African American literary studies. It’s also true that we do not have many large-scale projects like the Black Bibliography Project.

Both Ebram and Awanjo have PhDs in literary studies, and that they are working on a major project central to African American literary studies but not as formal literary scholars says something to us about how academic work is structured and the value of thinking beyond traditional scholarly roles. Ebram and Awanjo are showing us what that looks like.

For quite some time now, I’ve been thinking and writing about scholar-organizers for literary gatherings. Those scholars in our discipline who convene conferences, institutes, and collaborative initiatives have been essential to the development and formation of intellectual communities. By hosting “Networking Black Print: Reimagining Black Bibliography,” Goldsby and McGill contribute to a rich continuum of scholar-organizing.

And Awanjo and Ebram allow us to think in other directions as well. Over the last few years, they have been supervising teams of graduate students and now undergraduates for this project. In the process, they have had to manage people, budgets, visits to different universities and libraries, room and tech assistance reservations, communications, scheduling, and workflow systems.

All these and more activities constitute what I refer to as the invisible workings of African American literary studies. We tend to think of scholarly articles and books as the most visible intellectual features of the discipline. But what about the everyday activities or the special events like conferences or collaborative research projects? These are all forms of labor and coordination that Awanjo and Ebram handle on a regular basis.

And let’s not forget the critical role of anticipation in project management and conference coordination. So much involves thinking through and imagining the needs of participants long before invitations go out and well before the conference takes place. They anticipate, for instance, that people like me will ask how to get from the airport to the hotel and from the hotel to the campus sessions. 

The practice of anticipation is so integral to the toolbox of a good project manager and team lead that, somewhere in their unwritten playbook for their duties, I'm convinced that they have little Post-it note reminders to themselves that read: be able to see into the future.

In graduate school, we learn quite a bit about performing the roles of teacher and scholar. But project manager? Team lead? We rarely receive instruction in those areas, yet as Ebram and Awanjo reveal, that kind of expertise is essential to the success of large-scale projects in African American literary studies.

Related:

• A Notebook on the Networking Black Print Conference (April 2026)

Jacqueline Goldsby, Meredith L. McGill, and the Work of Convening a Black Bibliography Conference

Jacqueline Goldsby and Meredith L. McGill demonstrated the expansive scope of Black bibliographic work by organizing a conference that included such an eclectic group of people who engage books and print culture, thus signaling the multiplicity of bibliographic work as well as their project.

For all kinds of legitimate reasons, African American literary studies has become more specialized over the decades, as various subfields within the discipline have expanded and developed. Among other things, it’s common to attend conferences comprised of African American literary scholars in distinct areas. Keep in mind that for decades, scholars in our discipline resided on the margins of English. To build community and intellectual momentum, it’s become essential at moments to convene gatherings of scholars of Black literature.

Still, it’s a breakthrough of sorts when literary scholars like Goldsby and McGill find ways to bring together people across professional and intellectual domains who engage Black print and bibliography. It’s not enough to say such a gathering is interdisciplinary. A rare book dealer, designer, private collector, and bookstore owner, who presented, don’t fit so neatly in academic disciplines the ways that those terms are typically deployed.

Librarians are integral to the Black Bibliography Project, and not surprisingly, they were prominent participants at the conference. Their presence highlighted the extent to which bibliographic work depends on interpretation and access and the long-term care of materials.

Here’s a rundown of the conference sessions:

• Introducing the BBP database (Black Bibliography Project Core Team)
• The Preservation of Black Print (Librarians and curators)
• Concurrent hands-on sessions (1. Beta testing of the BBP Database; 2. Letterpress workshop; 3. Open Conversation on Sustainability)
• Lightning talks (Black Bibliography Project Fellows)
• Black Books and Visual Culture (Artists)
• Plenary Conversation #1: The Future of Black Print Collections (Directors and Curators of major Black archival collections)
• Concurrent hands-on sessions (1. Beta testing of the BBP Database; 2. Letterpress workshop; 3. Open Conversation on Sustainability)
• Black Digital Humanities (Leading scholars in Black Digital Humanities)
• Reimagining Scholarship with the BBP Database (Black Bibliography Project Graduate Student Fellows)
• The Movement of Black Books (Rare book collector, bookseller, rare book dealer)
• Plenary Conversation #2: Black Bibliography and the Practice of Black Studies

Goldsby and McGill put on a conference, and they also modeled what it means to convene across difference and build collaborative infrastructures for Black bibliographic work.

Related:

• A Notebook on the Networking Black Print Conference (April 2026)

The Networking Black Print Conference

“Networking Black Print: Reimagining Black Bibliography,” the April 9–10, 2026 conference hosted by the Black Bibliography Project and co-directed by Jacqueline Goldsby and Meredith L. McGill, was full of generative ideas and was designed to highlight African American bibliographic work while ultimately doing much more in the process.

Goldsby and McGill, literary scholars based at Yale University and Rutgers University, respectively, assembled a conference distinguished by its range of participants. In addition to literary scholars, the gathering brought together individuals working across multiple fields and professions.

“We’ve convened this gathering,” wrote Goldsby and McGill in the welcome section of the program booklet, “as a chance to lift up and reflect on work that is re-shaping the practices of Black Bibliography—including the database our project has been building for the past 8 years.”

As they note, and as the program made clear, the project engages literary critics, historians, curators, cataloguers, booksellers, book dealers, collectors, visual artists, and software engineers. The conference was showing the expansive reach of Black bibliographic work by bringing together such a diverse group, which included the former Librarian of Congress. Yes, unh-hunh, one of the speakers was Carla Hayden, who reflected on aspects of her career and emphasized the importance of access and preservation concerning Black print cultures.

The presentations displayed breadth, with sessions on preservation, print collections, book visual culture, digital humanities, and the Black Bibliography Project database, among other topics.

I participated in the closing panel, “Black Bibliography and the Practice of Black Studies,” alongside leading scholars Elizabeth McHenry, Kinohi Nishikawa, and Derrick Spires. If you want to witness some of the most rigorous and wide-ranging bibliographic work in African American literary studies, you’d do well to read their scholarship.

The conference demonstrated how Black bibliography continues to expand as both a field of study and a collaborative practice. It also made clear that the future of the work will depend on the kinds of exchanges and collective efforts that gatherings like this make possible.

Related:

• A Notebook on the Networking Black Print Conference (April 2026)

A Notebook on the Networking Black Print Conference (April 2026)

April 9 - 10, 2026, Jacqueline Goldsby and Meredith L. McGill, co-directors of the Black Bibliography Project, convened “Networking Black Print: Reimagining Black Bibliography” at Rutgers University. 

Here's a roundup of posts about the conference: 

• The Networking Black Print Conference 

• Jacqueline Goldsby, Meredith L. McGill, and the Work of Convening a Black Bibliography Conference

• The Organizing and Anticipatory Work of Amanda Awanjo and Tajah Ebram

• Walter O. Evans and the Black Collector Vibe

• The Beinecke vs. The Schomburg vs. The Private Collector

• Your Brain on Black Bibliography

On Lateral Reading

By Jeremiah Carter

Earlier this semester, while lesson planning for my composition course, I came across the term “reading laterally.” It is a combination of digital and informational reading. It refers to how fact-checkers read today, opening hyperlinks and new sources in real time, resulting in several open tabs at a time.

Lateral reading is potentially a more beneficial practice for new (first and second-year undergraduate) researchers as opposed to vertical reading (like scroll-based reading). For new researchers and casual readers, reading vertically can take longer for inconsistencies and issues of credibility to become evident. Yet acquiring the skill of lateral reading can be troublesome for the developing reader, battling distraction and growing their cognitive endurance.

Scholars and graduate students are familiar with research processes that involve dozens of open tabs and are keenly aware of how both productive and counterproductive this can be. Yet, this can become a source of frustration for first-year undergraduate readers. Sure, where “there is no struggle [frustration], there is no progress,” but this dilemma also highlights the need for more structured support, guided practice, and explicit instruction for young readers navigating an increasingly complex digital information landscape.

Strengthening students’ reading practices and understanding their development is especially important for those of us who hope to bring them from composition classrooms into African American literary studies, where reading requires sustained attention to voice, history, form, intertextuality, and cultural memory.

Related:

• Notes on Black Readers & Digital Culture