Haley Reading Group: The Intuitionist, 1 - 33

[The Intuitionist (1999)]

This semester, we’re reading Colson Whitehead’s novel The Intuitionist (1999), where we’re focusing primarily on Whitehead's word usage and phrasings. That is, we’ll focus less on the plot and concentrate more on responses to the words and style of sentences. The Intuitionist is a good novel to think about when it comes to language, because Whitehead displays such an expansive vocabulary.

Think about the words that you regularly use in conversation and written compositions. Now, consider this: if you had a larger much larger vocabulary, what do you think you would be doing that you are not currently doing? Why would a larger vocabulary be allow you to do that thing?

Haley Reading Group: “The Art of Saving Relics"

[The Best American Science and Nature Writing (2017)]

Sarah Everts's "The Art of Relics" begins by following a museum conservator who notices the decay of a prized astronaut suit made out of plastic. This inspires research on the research of the lifespan and dependency of plastic used in astronaut suits, artwork, and other materials (3).

The scientists can pinpoint four specific type of plastics that are not durable and long lasting. This article follows the scientists as they search for alternatives to plastic and warn artists and others depended on plastics of the danger of its reliability.

The article was selected by Hope Jahren as one of the "best" science and nature writing pieces for 2017. In brief, what do you think led her to view Everts' article as one of the best?

Haley Reading Group: “Waiting for the Light”

[The Best American Science and Nature Writing (2015)]

In "Waiting for the Light," Jake Abrahamson follows the journey of Ritu Raj Verma as he attempts to bring portable light through lanterns to India. According to Verma, Indian villages like Jangaon are completely stagnant with the sun goes down and they are without electricity to provide light.

Both Abrahamson and Verma work to provide accessible light to rural villages in India. This article details the hardships and history as to providing light to the villages is difficult.

The article was selected by Rebecca Skloot as one of the "best" science and nature writing pieces for 2015. In brief, what do you think led her to view Abrahamson's article as one of the best? 

Spring 2019--Haley Reading Groups

This semester, we have Haley Reading Groups covering The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2015 edited by Rebecca Skloot, The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2017 edited by Hope Jahren, and The Intuitionist (1999) by Colson Whitehead.

Group 1 - Best American Science and Nature Writing 2015
• January 30 - Jake Abrahamson’s “Waiting for the Light” (1 – 8)
• February 6 - Shelia Webster Boneham’s “A Question of Corvids” (33 – 42)
• February 20 - Lisa M. Hamilton’s “Linux for Lettuce” (72 – 90)
• March 6 - Rowan Jacobsen’s “Down by the River” (91 – 99)
• March 27 - Seth Mnookin’s “One of a Kind” (191 – 206)
• April 10 - Matthew Power’s “Blood in the Sand” (212 – 224)
• April 24 - Reflections

Group 2 - Best American Science and Nature Writing 2017
• January 30 - Sarah Everts’s “The Art of Saving Relics” (1 – 9)
• February 13 - Maria Konnikova’s “Altered Taste” (10 – 26)
• February 27 - Becca Cudmore’s “The Case for Leaving City Rats Alone” (59 – 64)
• March 20 - Tom Kizzia’s “The New Harpoon” (77- 92)
• April 3 - Elizabeth Kolbert’s “A Song of Ice” (93-114)
• April 17 - Christopher Solomon’s “The Devil Is in the Details” (167-185)
• April 24 - Reflections

Group 3 - The Intuitionist
• January 30 - First prompt, 1 - 33
• February 6 - Second prompt, 33 - 65
• February 20 - Third prompt, 69 – 105
• March 6 - Fourth prompt, 105 – 140
• March 27 - Fifth prompt, 145 – 217
• April 10 - Sixth prompt, 221 – 255
• April 24 - Reflections

Related:
• Haley Reading Groups

Remixing Dometi Pongo's Mental Slavery

Image source

During our digital humanities club activity last Wednesday, I had the high school students work on audio compositions blending poetry and hip-hop instrumentals. At the last minute as I was preparing audio clips for them to use, I decided to include a short rap verse from Dometi Pongo, which he recorded several years ago.

What seemed like an after-thought became a primary focus of the session. Although they were free to choose any of the selections, nearly all of the 11 students chose to produce audio compositions featuring Pongo's lyrics from a piece he did called "Mental Slavery." They added beats to his rapping.

I was fascinated that so many of the students were drawn to Pongo's verse and sound. Literary scholars say that poetry is rap, but relatively few poets deliver words the way rappers like Pongo do, and my students don't respond to literary poetry as strongly as they do to work classified as rap. There's certainly more to say on that.

For now, here's a clip of Pongo's original verse, acapella:



Here's a clip of Pongo again, this time with a beat by Just Blaze that one of the students, Jordan added:



Related:
• The East St. Louis Digital Humanities Club Spring 2019

A Notebook on the East St. Louis Digital Humanities Club

From fall of 2017- fall 2019, I coordinated an after-school arts and technology club for high school students from East St. Louis. We worked on various activities associated with digital technologies, like graphic design and audio mixing. 

This program emerged from Digital East St. Louis, a collaborative project between SIUE's STEM Center and the IRIS Center. The project is supported by a National Science Foundation ITEST grant.

Fall 2019
• Week 9: December 10
• Week 8: November 19
• Week 7: November 5
• Week 6: October 29
• Week 5: October 22
• Week 4: October 8
• Week 3: October 1
• Week 2: September 24
• Week 1: September 17

• Scenes from the East St. Louis Digital Humanities Club: Weeks 1 - 9
• East St. Louis postcard collages
• High school students and collage work

Spring 2019
Activity Summaries:
• Week 10: April 30
• Week 9: April 23
• Week 8: April 9
• Week 7: April 2
• Week 6: March 19
• Week 5: March 6
• Week 4: February 27
• Week 3: February 20
• Week 2 : February 6
• Week 1: January 23

• Scenes from the East St. Louis Digital Humanities Club, Spring 2019

Briefs:
• Congratulations to Jaylen, one of our lead DH club members
• Building audio mixes with creative writers
• Presentation on the East St. Louis Digital Humanities Club
• Additional audio mixes on East St. Louis creative compositions
• Blending a common sentence by two readers
• Remixing Dometi Pongo's Mental Slavery

Fall 2018
Activity Summaries:
• Week 9: December 11
• Week 8: November 27
• Week 7: November 13
• Week 6: November 6
• Week 5: October 30
• Week 4: October 16
• Week 3: October 3
• Week 2: September 26
• Week 1: September 12

• Scenes from the East St. Louis Digital Humanities Club, Fall 2018

Briefs:
• Collegiate black men as guides on a Humanities/STEM project

• Adrian Matejka's "Sporting Life" meets hip hop

• Early remixes of Black Panther #1 covers
• Technology and abstract visual
• Remixing Amiri Baraka's "The Aesthetic," Part 1

Coverage of (new) Native Son film

I've been reading Richard Wright's work for years now, so I'm intrigued about the upcoming release of the new movie adapting his Native Son (1940). The movie stars Ashton Sanders, Margaret Qualley,  and KiKi Layne, among others. It is directed by Rashid Johnson based on a screenplay by Suzan-Lori Parks.

Here's a roundup of articles I've read on the movie so far:

January 24: Sundance Film Review: ‘Native Son’ - Variety - Owen Gleiberman
January 24: HBO Films Picks Up Rashid Johnson’s Native Son - Vulture - Bethy Squires
January 24: HBO Films Acquires ‘Native Son’ - IndieWire - Michael Nordine
January 25: Native Son is a raw, lyrical Richard Wright retelling - EW - Leah Greenblatt
January 25: 'Native Son': Film Review | Sundance 2019 - Hollywood Reporter - Todd McCarthy
January 25: Why 'Native Son' filmmakers cut brutal rape scene for modern retelling - USA Today - Patrick Ryan
January 25: Rashid Johnson's heartracing adaptation of Native Son proves... - Twitter - Matt Patches
January 25: Great choice of Sundance opener... - Twitter - Kevin Fallon
January 25: Native Son: a mixed bag... - Twitter - Brian Tallerico
January 25: Sundance 2019 Review: ‘Native Son’ - Blackgirlnerds - Jonita Davis
January 25: Film adaptation of Richard Wrights’ ‘Native Son’ - The Grio - Kia Morgan-Smith
January 25: ‘Native Son’ can’t escape the shadow of Richard Wright - Vanyaland - Nick Johnson
January 25: 'Native Son': Sundance Review - ScreenDaily - Tim Grierson
January 25: Parks, Johnson Cut Violent Scene From 'Native Son' Remake - Sameer Rao - Colorlines
January 25: Present-day adaptation of ‘Native Son’ opens Sundance 2019 - The Undefeated - Kelley L. Carter
January 26: Sundance Film Festival: Native Son - KUTV - Ryan Painter

Related:
• A Notebook on Richard Wright

Juan Ferreyra, double-page spreads, and brain power

From Green Arrow #3

The next time you need a reminder of how wonderful your brain is, go check out some of Juan Ferreyra's artwork. In particular, go look at some of his double-page spreads. Your ability to process all of the visual information in those images will give you an indication of just how fantastic this thing called a brain really is.

I was looking and blogging about Ferreyra's work on Killmonger a couple of weeks ago, and I decided to discuss him again, this time with students in a comic book class that I'm co-teaching. Most of the students in the class are just getting underway with their first time reading comics. So I thought it would be good to introduce them to medium through aspects of Ferreyra's compositions.

Whenever your eyes first encounter his spreads, your brain immediately begins trying to make sense of all that's happening. There's something known as preattentive visual processing where our sensory memory is interpreting images in less than 500 milliseconds before we are even fully conscious of it. What's cool about viewing Ferreyra's work and the works of countless other illustrators and graphic designers is that we're rewarded as we continue looking.

From Green Arrow #4

As I was noting to the students, we can first take a look at Ferreyra's overall two-page spreads as a single image. Next, we can begin breaking down the piece in parts, one panel at a time, taking alternate looks at one of the two pages, and then taking a look from left to right. During all of this, our brains are seeking out patterns and making sense of the shapes, colors, spatial positions, and suggestions of motion.

It's a testament to the power of our brains that we can absorb so many visual elements so quickly -- consciously and subconsciously. And it's a credit to Ferreyra's artistic talents that there can be so much delight and discovery as we pursue repeat viewings of the images.

From Killmonger #2

Related:
• Juan Ferreyra's masterful artwork on Killmonger
• A notebook on comic books

Digital Humanities Club: Week 1

We had our first session of the semester with our digital humanities club on Wednesday, January 23. We worked on audio compositions, which is really a favorite of the students.

There were 11 students in attendance, more than usual. So we were allowing some of them to get adjusted to the software we're using -- Audacity. Moving forward, we're going to try to produce extended and collaborative compositions.

Related: 
• The East St. Louis Digital Humanities Club Spring 2019

The East St. Louis Digital Humanities Club Spring 2019

This semester, we extend our East St. Louis Digital Humanities Club--an extracurricular program. The participants in the club -- a graduate student, undergraduates, and high school students -- will work on graphic design, audio mixes, and public exhibits. The goal is to build interest and expertise in technology.

[Related: The East St. Louis Digital Humanities Club]

Spring 2019, summaries of activities:
• Week 1: January 23
• Week 2 : February 6
• Week 3: February 20
• Week 4: February 27
• Week 5: March 6
• Week 6: March 19
• Week 7: April 2
• Week 8: April 9
• Week 9: April 23
• Week 10: April 30

• Scenes from the East St. Louis Digital Humanities Club, Spring 2019

Briefs:
• Congratulations to Jaylen, one of our lead DH club members
• Building audio mixes with creative writers
• Presentation on the East St. Louis Digital Humanities Club
• Additional audio mixes on East St. Louis creative compositions
• Blending a common sentence by two readers
• Remixing Dometi Pongo's Mental Slavery

--------------------------
This after-school DH club is an outgrowth of our larger Digital East St. Louis, a collaborative project between SIUE's STEM Center and the IRIS Center. The project is supported by a National Science Foundation ITEST grant.

Visualizing Time and Labor in “the Big 7” Project

By Kenton Rambsy

At the 2019 MLA Convention in Chicago, I presented my findings from a year long data collection project. Working with Peace Williamson, I transformed "The Black Short Story Dataset," into a one-page interactive chart that visualizes the most frequently republished black short stories from 1925 - 2017. The visualization highlights the seven most frequently anthologized short story writers or "The Big 7."

What the "The Big 7 Visualization" doesn’t show, though, is the hours of labor that went into producing a short and concise document. There is a tendency to downplay human contributions to digital projects. There is very little discussion about how much time it takes to engage in DH research. This project made one aspect of DH painstakingly clear: digital projects are labor intensive.

This particular project took a total of 305 hours. A total of four people performed an assortment of tasks that contributed to its completion. Kukhyoung Kim, a graduate research assistant at UTA’s library of research data services transformed my hourly logs of this project into a visualization.

This graph offers a visual interpretation concerning the labor associated with creating “The Big 7 Visualization.” Anthology transcriptions accounted for the majority of the labor associated with this project. More than just transcribing tables of contents, we created a spreadsheet of specific information related to the authors and publication histories of the stories and anthologies.

If I had been working by myself, the time to transcribe the anthologies and perform other tasks would have taken much longer. I was fortunate to receive funding from UTA’s College of Liberal Arts iLASR grant to complete this project. Without funding, I would not have been able to hire graduate research assistants or use funds for a number of direct and indirect costs to complete this project. Ultimately, funding contributed greatly to my ability to complete a project of this sort in a year’s time.

Juan Ferreyra's masterful artwork on Killmonger

I've been reading Bryan Hill's miniseries Killmonger and in addition to enjoying the writing, I've been really impressed with the artwork by Juan Ferreyra. In nearly every issue, Ferreyra presents at least one, two-page set of images -- also known as a double-page spread -- that dramatize the action of the narrative through the use of several different, interconnected panels. The most riveting one at this point appears in issue #3, but Hill and Ferreyra offered previous images like these to get us to this point.

[Related: Reading Bryan Hill in 2018]

From Killmonger #1

In issue #1, a scene shows Killmonger assuming the role of sniper and prepares to shoot his nemesis Klaw from afar. At the last minute, Killmonger is interrupted by a character Knight, who disarms him just before he can take an accurate shot. The sequence of actions are presented in 11 different panels, a few overlaying others providing us with close-ups of specific moves.

The Black Short Story Dataset—A List of 101 Anthologies

By Kenton Rambsy

I recently published my dataset of 101 anthologies to the Texas Data Repository. The “Black Short Story Dataset” includes anthologies that contain short fiction by black writers. The following list presents the literary collections, by year, included in the dataset.

1920
• 1925: The New Negro edited by Alain LeRoy Locke

1930
• 1931: Readings from Negro Authors edited by Otelia Cromwell; Lorenzo Dow Turner; Eva Beatrice Dykes

1940
• 1941: The Negro Caravan: Writings by American Negroes edited by Sterling Allen Brown; Arthur P Davis;Ulysses G Lee

1950s
• 1950: American Literatureby Negro Authors edited by Herman Dreer
• 1958: The Best American Short Stories 1958 edited by Martha Foley, David Burnett

1960s
• 1966: American Negro Short Stories (Black American Short Stories) edited by John Henrick Clarke
• 1967: The Best Short Stories by Black Writers 1899-1967 edited by Langston Hughes; Gloria Naylor
• 1968: Black Voices: An Anthology of African-American Literature edited by Abraham Chapman;
• 1968: Black Fire: An Anthology of Afro-American Writing edited by Larry Neal, Amiri Baraka
• 1968: Dark Symphony: Negro Literature in America edited by James A Emanuel
• 1969: Black American Literature: Fiction edited by Darwin T Turner
• 1969: American Literature: Tradition & Innovation, Vol. 3 edited by Harrison T Meserole; Walter Sutton; Brom Weber

Categorizing Anthology Types in “The Black Short Story Dataset”

By Kenton Rambsy

The “Black Anthology Dataset” represents my efforts to collect anthologies that include short fiction by black writers. Even though all the anthologies contain short stories by black writers, the dataset contains various types of literary collections. To distinguish between the various contexts that black short stories circulate, I created various categories to assign to the different anthology types. My dataset includes 9 kinds of anthologies:

[Related: click here to see The Black Short Story Dataset—A List of 101 Anthologies]

• Comprehensive African American Anthologies chart the entire field of African American literature from “the beginnings” to present day and include poetry, novel excepts, essays, play, and short stories.

• Comprehensive American collections include writers from multiple racial and ethnic backgrounds, though most of the writers have historically been white.

• Short Story Black Collections are exclusively devoted to short stories by black writers.

• Short Story General Collections contain short stories by a variety of writers.

• Special Topics Harlem Renaissance Collections specialize on the Harlem Renaissance era.

• Special Topics Black Women Writers Collections focus only on black women’s writing and include anthologies such as The Black Woman: An Anthology (1970), The Sleeper Wakes: Harlem Renaissance Stories by Women (1993), and Revolutionary Tales: African American Women's Short Stories, From the First Story to the Present (1995).

• Special Topics Black Literature Collections contain writings by black writers focusing on distinct genres or on special topics such as mystery, sci-fi, black identity with anthologies such as A Native Son Reader (1970), The Opportunity Reader (1999), and Gumbo: a celebration of African American writing (2002).

• Special topics Women Writers Collections are devoted to works by women from a variety of racial and ethnic backgrounds. Women Working: An Anthology of Stories and Poems and The Norton Anthology of Literature by Women (1985) are included in this category.

• Special Topics General Collections are multiple genre collections that contain both American and international writers. The Riverside Anthology of Literature (1996) and Literature Across Cultures (1998) are included in this category.

These various categories of anthologies assist us in managing the large number of available collections. The categories also address some of the general aims of the books. Editors of Harlem Renaissance collections highlight prominent and lesser-known works by writers of that particular era. Black Women’s collections advance the idea that writings by black women constitute distinct frames or kinds of writing, and sometimes even include works that do not appear in comprehensive black or American collections. Ultimately, recognition of anthology categories means acknowledging distinct types of collections similar to how we identify types of literature – poetry, novels, essays, short stories, etc.

Related:
• Visualizing the Big 7 – Data Driven Humanities
• Discovering the Big 7: Black short story writers and publishing history
• The Big 7 Tableau Public Visualization
• African American Short Fiction & Data Driven Humanities (MLA)
• A Dataset on Black Short Stories

Lovalerie King in context

I wanted to share just a few short blog entries about my good friend, Lovalerie King, who passed away on December 22, 2018. I was mostly writing some reflections to share with her family. They knew her as a daughter, sister, mom, aunt, cousin, and so forth. I knew her as a colleague, exemplary scholar of African American literary studies, and most important, as a good friend.

Given her quiet and humble ways, I doubt she ever fully articulated to her family how important she was in our field and to so many people. That's what motivates me to offer a little context.

Starting at Penn State: Lovalerie King

Penn State colleagues Iyun Osagie and Lovalerie King

Lovalerie arrived at Pennsylvania State University in the fall of 2003, just as I was departing after securing a job at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. There was no major buzz about Lovalerie's arrival. Truth be told, I think people underestimated her. They didn't know how productive she'd be or all she'd accomplish.

I was fortunate to meet her as I was just starting out as a junior professor. She generously gave me advice and guidance on a wide range of issues that I was too naive or unaware to know I needed. Whatever the case, my abilities to gain broad views of African American literary studies as a profession and the places of black people in English departments were directly linked to my friendship with Lovalerie.  

She had paid close attention to shifts and developments in the field. She knew who was where. She knew the books, literary artists, and scholars one should prioritize while trying to navigate one's scholarly and professional life. And she had thoughts on what a black person out here should be thinking about while trying to make moves.

Early on, she pointed out to me that those mostly white departments at schools like Penn State rarely hired people like her - an older black woman who doesn't fit a certain, narrow definition of an important African American scholar, one with an impressive publishing record or one with indications of having a promising career. She persisted though,  and did exceptionally well.

She was a professor, yes. A scholar, yes. But above all of that, Lovalerie was, as we say, good people.

Her reputation as good people is what makes losing her so painful. A day after she passed away, scholar Dana Williams sent out a message saying, "We love you and will miss you, Val." I've read and spoken Dana's words aloud so many times at this point. So many of us loved Lovalerie and now miss her deeply.

Part 2: "'I'm a student of Trudier': Lovalerie King & that generation of exemplary black women lit. scholars

Related:
• Lovalerie King in context
• A Notebook on Lovalerie King

"'I'm a student of Trudier Harris': Lovalerie King & that generation of exemplary black women lit. scholars

Lovalerie King and Briana Whiteside, both students of Trudier Harris

One of the major, most productive scholars in the field of African American literary studies is Trudier Harris. In addition to publishing numerous articles and several books, she directed dissertations of an incredible number of students.

One of those students, of course, was Lovalerie. I was always fascinated by how she'd invoke Harris's teachings. It was usually after someone was surprised at Lovalerie pulling off some large-scale project. She'd retell a story to me, and she'd often conclude the stories the same way: "They don't understand that I'm a student of Trudier."

For Lovalerie, being a student of Trudier Harris meant being invested in thorough, high quality works by black folks. It meant she was supposed to acquire and continuously expand knowledge in various areas. It meant carrying one's self as a thoughtful sister-scholar.

It also meant keeping Harris's expectations in mind and imagining conversations with her about major decisions. "I knew what Trudier would say if I didn't," Lovalerie would tell me when I asked about one of her latest accomplishments.

When I first met Lovalerie in 2003, she told me that she wanted to eventually produce a large-scale project on a generation of black women literature scholars. Barbara Christian. Eleanor Traylor. Cheryl A. Wall. Maryemma Graham. Karla F. C. Holloway. Deborah E. McDowell. Trudier Harris, and several others. She thought that these scholars had collectively done groundbreaking work during the 1980s and 1990s, and had not been adequately acknowledged for their contributions.

That generation of black women scholars was an inspiration to Lovalerie. They were a source of her strength. Her strength also came from her own long journeys.

Part 3: "I used to pick cotton": Lovalerie King and perspective

Related:
• Lovalerie King in context
• A Notebook on Lovalerie King

"I used to pick cotton": Lovalerie King and perspective

"I used to pick cotton," Lovalerie King once told me. I had been asking her how she maintains and keeps perspective in a field, profession, and job where she was constantly receiving slights. She was noting that in some ways her identity and experiences aligned her with a large number of black women scholars. So she was able to draw on the many lessons they had shared.

At the same time, she informed me, her route to and through the academy did not align with many of the black women in her age group and at universities in general. She had decided to pursue a career in the academy much later than almost all of her colleagues.

Many aspiring professors to college after high school. Well, Lovalerie was initially working to support her younger siblings and then her children and later still her ailing mother. So she first completed her undergrad degree after she retired from decades of work. She pointed those things out to me not as a way of showing she was exceptional. Instead, she wanted me to get a sense of where she was coming from, and why she carried herself as she did, sometimes at a distance.

Her timeline, therefore, was different from many of ours. That may have also explained why she was motivated to be so productive.

Part 4: Lovalerie King's incredible scholarly productivity

Related:
• Lovalerie King in context
• A Notebook on Lovalerie King

Lovalerie King's incredible scholarly productivity

In terms of publications and editorial work, Lovalerie King was especially productive between 2006 and 2013. During that time, she published two single-authored books, and she co-edited four books of articles by various scholars. Here's a list of her book publications:

       2006: James Baldwin and Toni Morrison: Comparative Critical and Theoretical Essays (co-edited with L. Scott)
       2007: Race, Theft, and Ethics: Property Matters in African American Literature
       2008: The Cambridge Introduction to Zora Neale Hurston
       2008: New Essays on the African American Novel (co-edited with Linda Seltzer)
       2009: African American Culture and Legal Discourse (co-edited with Richard Schur)
       2013: Contemporary African American Literature: The Living Canon (co-edited with Shirley Moody-Turner)

Some of us, no, many of us would be pleased to have that record of publication for a full career. Lovalerie did it in just seven years.

During this same period of time, she co-organized four major conferences at Penn State, served as interim director of the Africana Research Center from 2008 - 2016, and in 2012, she directed a summer institute funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities. Look, what kind of precious, durable, marvelous elements were used to construct a Lovalerie King?

She was generous, funny, and caring. No doubt. But when the martial songs and dirges are written, let us also note that Lovalerie King was intellectually gifted and tremendously productive.

Part 5: Lovalerie King and Maryemma Graham: getting everybody together

Related:
• Lovalerie King in context
• A Notebook on Lovalerie King

Lovalerie King and Maryemma Graham: getting everybody together

I've previously commented that our field has benefited from the efforts of scholar-organizers like Joanne Gabbin, Joycelyn Moody, Brenda M. Greene, Carolyn Denard, Donna Akiba Harper, and others. And as I've also pointed out before, Maryemma Graham and Lovalerie have been noteworthy leading forces with respect to getting everybody together. I've been a witness.

I've lost track of how many times they got all kinds of folks in the same room and on a common project. The range of contributors that Graham and Lovalerie pulled together for projects has been really impressive. They involve people at different stages of their careers. They know the old-school folks. The new school folks. They involve people from PWIs and HBCUs.

Conferences and edited collections were two crucial ways that Lovalerie pulled us together. Here's a list of some of the scholarly gatherings that she was instrumental in implementing:

       2005: "Celebrating the African American Novel" - co-organizer
       2009: "Contemporary African American Literature" - co-organizer
       2011: "African American Literature, Race and Sexual Identity" - co-organizer
       2012: "Contemporary African-American Literature" (NEH Summer Institute) - director
       2013: "Celebrating Contemporary African American Literature: U.S. and Afro-Caribbean Poetry" - co-organizer

Consider the variety of those gatherings, which involved hundreds of people.

The four books that Lovalerie co-edited were good contributions to the field, and they also allowed her to provide publishing opportunities for nearly 50 scholars. Those efforts were extraordinary acts of coordination and generosity on Lovalerie's part. It's who she was.

Part 6: "It works for me": Lovalerie King and retirement

Related:
• Lovalerie King in context
• A Notebook on Lovalerie King

"It works for me": Lovalerie King and retirement

Lovalerie retired in 2016. She had worked two long careers, and she'd given so much. She felt it was time to step away.

In June 2017, something or another came up, and we spent some time exchanging texts messages. At one point, I asked her about retirement: And so you're really done with the academy just like that? No more articles and ish? That must be nice. Or is it?

She took a brief moment and then responded:

“It works for me, Howard. I’ve been trying to work on a novel, or novels—but truth be told, I was the oldest daughter of eight siblings who took care of the household from a fairly early age, had two kids as a single mom, worked 23 years, nursed my mom as she was dying, retired to finish undergrad, then grad school, then 16 more years working in a racist American institution, and so I figured I had earned a few years of sitting on my ass doing nothing. It’s been one year. If I get the novel done I will send u the manuscript and ask for reading!! 

She certainly did earn it. I was so pleased that she was getting to take it easy and spend time with friends and family. I was excited too listen as she shared ideas about her novel. That was our Lovalerie.

Part 1: Starting at Penn State: Lovalerie King

Related:
• Lovalerie King in context
• A Notebook on Lovalerie King

A Notebook on Lovalerie King

Scholar and friend, Lovalerie King was also an author and professor of African American literature.

Entries:
2018
• January 5: Lovalerie King in context
• January 5: Starting at Penn State
• January 5: "'I'm a student of Trudier Harris': Lovalerie King & that generation of exemplary black women lit. scholars
• January 5: "I used to pick cotton": Lovalerie King and perspective
• January 5: Lovalerie King's incredible scholarly productivity
• January 5: Lovalerie King and Maryemma Graham: getting everybody together
• January 5: "It works for me": Lovalerie King and retirement

2017
• March 9: Black women scholar-organizers and literary gatherings

2013
• October 31: Conference Notes: U.S. and Afro-Caribbean Poetry at Penn State
• September 9: Lovalerie King, Maryemma Graham, and the states of the field

2012

• August 1, 2012: Lovalerie King, a quiet, leading force in African American Literature

Visualizing the Big 7 – Data Driven Humanities

By Kenton Rambsy

Over three months, I worked with UTA’s data librarian Peace Williamson to create a Tableau Public visualization that highlights the circulation history of black short fiction in anthologies from 1925 to 2017. The interactive chart focuses on the circulation histories of black short fiction and highlights “The Big 7,” a core group of frequently anthologized black short story writers.

Click here to see: The Big 7 Tableau Public Visualization

This visualization makes it possible easily survey a large body of information concerning African American-authored short stories in 100 anthologies.




The stacked bar chart at the top represents the most frequently anthologized black short story writers. The different colors of the bar chart represent different types of anthologies. There are also icons for highlight male and female writers. Selecting these icons allows for users to perform a gendered analysis.

On the bottom left-hand side, the section “Anthologized Stories” displays every individual story by each writer that has been included in four or more collections. Hovering over each bar will display the story title and how many times it’s been included in 100 anthologies. Holding your mouse over the total number will reveal the total amount of times stories have been included in anthologies by a specific writer.

On the right hand side, there is a timeline of stories by the Big 7. The dropdown menu allows you to select a specific Big 7 writer and track the publication history of their short fiction. Hovering over the book icons reveals what story the particular anthology includes.

Related:
• A Dataset on Black Short Stories
• The Big 7 Tableau Public Visualization
• Discovering the Big 7: Black short story writers and publishing history
• African American Short Fiction & Data Driven Humanities (MLA)

A Dataset on Black Short Stories

By Kenton Rambsy

The “Black Anthology Project” consists of a dataset charting the large variety of information concerning the publication of short stories by black writers published in approximately 100 collections. I created the dataset as a way of tracking information related to African American short fiction in order to identify what writers and corresponding stories circulate most often in literary anthologies. I also wanted to create a digital record that other researchers could access in order to study the historical contexts in which black short fiction circulates.

Click here to view: The Black Short Story Dataset - Vol. 1

A dataset like this one seeks to address the under-representation of African American subject matter in digital humanities and cultural analytics. Scholars have infrequently sought to compile and analyze data focused on large numbers of black writers. Moreover, scholars have rarely created documents that trace the history of black literature in accessible online formats that other scholars can manipulate and add on to for research purposes.

This dataset can be used to track the circulation histories of approximately 630 unique black short fiction across 100 anthologies. The dataset collections a variety of information, including story titles, original sites of publication, author birth years, and additional information about the authors. The dataset makes it possible to peruse information about 300 authors relatively quickly.

100 anthologies represent a significant but ultimately small portion of the many collections published over the decades. Still, this sample constitutes, I hope, an important step in the direction of producing expansive datasets on the publishing histories of black short stories and African American literary art in general.

Related:
• Visualizing the Big 7 – Data Driven Humanities
• Discovering the Big 7: Black short story writers and publishing history
• The Big 7 Tableau Public Visualization
• African American Short Fiction & Data Driven Humanities (MLA)

Discovering the Big 7: Black short story writers and publishing history

By Kenton Rambsy

One of my most fascinating discoveries during my research over the years on short stories has been the identification of seven black writers whose works appeared more than many others. Short stories by Charles Chesnutt, Zora Neale Hurston, Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, Toni Cade Bambara, and Alice Walker, or as I began calling them, “the Big 7,” have been favored selections. Since 1925, anthology editors reprinted over 300 black short story writers, and the Big 7 were the ones they selected most often.

Dozens of editors facilitated the recurring placements of stories by writers. The sheer numbers of anthologized literary works make it difficult to fully grasp the extensive nature of circulation histories. I identified and examined 100 anthologies that include African American literature and discovered that those collection include about 630 unique short stories.

A closer look and data analysis revealed to me that Chesnutt, Hurston, Wright, Ellison, Baldwin, Bambara, and Walker were appearing over and over, outpacing all the other writers. All together, the stories by those seven writers have been republished 354 times across 100 anthologies. These days, when editors organize collections that included African-American short fiction, it was they likely include stories by most, if not all, of those seven writers.

This dataset helps clarify the phrase “widely anthologized” by quantifying the specific amount of times a particular writer and story circulate across 100 anthologies. We are also able to observe what authors and stories became preferred selections for anthologists over several decades. Ultimately, this dataset offers multiple opportunities for researchers to perform comparative analyses regarding the circulation histories of black short fiction.

Related:
• Visualizing the Big 7 – Data Driven Humanities
• A Dataset on Black Short Stories
• The Big 7 Tableau Public Visualization
• African American Short Fiction & Data Driven Humanities (MLA)

C. Liegh McInnis's rapid pace across "The Bridge"

C. Liegh McInnis reading his poem "The Bridge"

Last June, just as I was giving thought to the pace of poets reading, C. Liegh McInnis sent a mass email to a group of us with a link to his reading of his poem, "The Bridge (for Medgar at the Crossroads)." He had read the poem on June 12, 2018, at the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum. The event was commemorating the 55th anniversary of the assassination of Evers.

I tucked the poem away but finally got some time to start thinking more about McInnis and the pace or speed of various other poets reading their works. I want to note off the top that pace is just one of many aspects of a poet's delivery style. Just because some poets reads faster or slower than others doesn't signal that some are more or less valuable than others.

Still, I've been intrigued by poets who read quicker than the speed of conversational speech, which is between 120 to 150 words per minute (wpm), according to various sources. McInnis reads his poem "The Bridge," which contains 649* words, at about 162 wpm. That is to say, he's uttering words faster than the speed of an average conversation.

There's more to say about his dynamism, voice inflections, allusions, wordplay, hand movements, and so forth, which I'll take up at a later time. But for now, I wanted to note that his pace is also important because his delivery style corresponds to a kind of speech-making. Interestingly though, people delivering speeches or presentations tend to move slower, or at least are advised to move slower than how they might speak during conversations. So McInnis is interestingly combining aspects of a speech with the rapid pace of a poem. Those combined elements, I'd say, contribute to why members of his audience were moved to give him a standing ovation at the end.

I was curious about McInnis's wpm in relation to poems by two dozen other poets.  (Click here to see a selection of poems arranged by wpm). McInnis joins Mahogany L. Browne, Amiri Baraka, Etheridge Knight, and June Jordan as some of the faster readers, at least among the sample that I am working with at the moment. It's really fascinating to consider the speed of readings by Baraka, Jordan, and McInnis in poems over 600 words. Keeping up the paces that they do in poems with that many words requires some skill and endurance.

Notes:
* My text of the poem slightly differs from his reading toward the end. So the 649 is an approximation, but fairly close.

Related:
• Amiri Baraka's "Dope" in the context of rap freestyle
• A selection of poems by words per minute
• A notebook on C. Liegh McInnis

A selection of poems by words per minute

Here's a list of poets, poem titles, total words (tw), and words per minute (wpm). The list is arranged from the most wpm, though I want to emphasize that the arrangement does not connote higher or lower value of the poems. The focus on pace or speed is just one among many other elements that resonate during a reading.

Poet - poem title - tw - wpm
• Amiri Baraka - "Dope" - 875 tw / 186.6 wpm
• Mahogany L. Browne - "Black Girl Magic" - 339 tw / 184.8 wpm
• June Jordan - "Poem about My Rights" - 902 tw / 171.6 wpm
• Etheridge Knight - "Hard Rock Returns to Prison From the Hospital for the Criminal Insane" - 346 tw  / 169.8 wpm
• C. Liegh McInnis - “The Bridge (for Medgar at the Crossroads)” - 649 tw / 162.3 wpm
• Sonia Sanchez - "a/needed/poem for my salvation" - 151 tw / 158.4 wpm
• Nikki Giovanni’s "Nikki-Rosa" - 197 tw / 155.4 wpm
• Yusef Komunuakaa - "Facing It"- 165 tw / 150 wpm
• Robert Hayden "Frederick Douglass" - 126 tw / 142.2 wpm
• Langston Hughes - "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" - 103 tw/ 138 wpm
• Michael Harper - "Dear John, Dear Coltrane" - 247 tw / 138 wpm
• Elizabeth Alexander - "Venus Hottentot" - 612 tw / 123.6 wpm
• Kevin Young - "Hard-Headed Blues" - 173 tw / 123 wpm
• Rita Dove (b. 1952) – "The Spring Cricket Considers the Question of Negritude" - 149 tw / 122.4 wpm
• Harryette Mullen – "We are Not Responsible” - 212 tw / 121.8 wpm
• Jayne Cortez - "I Am New York City" - 272 tw / 120.8 wpm
• Robert Hayden - "Middle Passage" - 1,209 tw / 120.6 wpm
• Natasha Trethewey - "Monument" - 149 tw / 118.8 wpm
• Tracy K. Smith - "Wade in the Water" - 175 tw / 116.4 wpm
• Sonia Sanchez - "Summer Words of a Sustuh Addict" - 116 tw / 115.8 wpm
• Evie Shockley - "improper(ty) behavior" - 203 tw / 115.8 wpm
• Claude McKay - "If We Must Die" - 115 tw / 114.6 wpm
• Maragret Walker - "For My People" - 490 tw / 112.2 wpm
• Gwendolyn Brooks - “The Mother” - 264 tw / 109 wpm
• Wanda Coleman - "Wanda, Why Aren't You Dead?" - 207 tw / 108.6 wpm
• Maya Angelou - “Still I Rise” - 240 tw / 108 wpm
• Lucille Clifton - "won’t you celebrate with me" - 76 tw / 108 wpm

Additional notes:
• The list above is not exhaustive, and I will be adding to the selections during the coming month or so.

• The non-linked poems were based on recordings that I own.

• For some perspective, conversational speech is between 120 and 150 wpm.

• Poets sometimes read and different speeds for the same poem, or they change for different kinds of poems. Brooks, for instance, reads her short poems at a rapid speed.

Related:
• Amiri Baraka's "Dope" in the context of rap freestyle
• C. Liegh McInnis's rapid pace across "The Bridge"

Amiri Baraka's "Dope" in the context of rap freestyle

(Image source: Robert Abbott Sengstacke / Getty Images)

This semester, I'm teaching a course on rap freestyle, in particular, the course focuses on the masterpiece delivered by Black Thought in December 2017. In addition to discussing other rap songs and rappers, I'll coverage several different poets, including Amiri Baraka. For the class, I'll think about his riveting poem "Dope" in the context of freestyle.

I've returned to Baraka's "Dope" many times during the last several years, but I've almost always presented his poem in courses that privilege literary art, not rap lyrics. Among other things, the slow pace and relatively low dynamism adopted by a large number of poets during readings prompt disinterest from many students. Baraka is an exception.

He moves rapidly in "Dope." By my calculation, he utters about 186.6 words per minute. Many poets, especially those who adopt "poet voice," speak far fewer words per minute. According to various sources, average conversational speech is somewhere between 120 - 150 words per minute. Baraka captivates attention in his delivery in part because he moves faster than many poets and faster than the average speed of conversation, and he does so by speaking 875 words--quite a bit to deliver rapidly.

But there's more. Baraka's dynamism in the poem stands out. He adjusts the volume and intensity of his voice throughout the reading. He uses wordless phrasings, including ""uuuuuuuuuu" and "oooowow." So the pace, combined with the verbal dynamism and wordplay contribute to making the poem so mesmerizing for listeners.

Related:
• A Notebook on the work of Amiri Baraka

Blogging about poetry in December 2018

[Related content: Blogging about Poetry]

• December 31: Blogging about Amiri Baraka in 2018
• December 31: A visual recap of poetry blog entries in 2018
• December 17: The year in African American poetry, 2018
• December 13: A short checklist of black women singers represented in black poetry
• December 13: Tiana Clark and poetic lineages
• December 11: Eve L. Ewing, poetry, comic books, and infinite possibility
• December 2: Riri Williams, Ironheart, Eve Ewing, and Maya Angelou
• December 1: Blogging about poetry in November 2018