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.
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