DHQ: Digital Humanities Quarterly

2024 18.4

Digital Sankofa: Understanding the Past and Futures of Black Digital Humanities

Editors: Rebecca Y. Bayeck and Joseph Bayeck

Front Matter

[en] Digital Sankofa: Understanding the Past and Futures of Black Digital Humanities

Rebecca Y. Bayeck, Instructional Technology & Learning Sciences, Emma Eccles Jones College of Education; Human Services, Utah State University; Joseph M. Bayeck, World Language, Montgomery Public Schools

Abstract [en]

Articles

[en] Debates in #BlackDH: Key Moments and Queer Directions in Black Studies Scholarship

Faithe J. Day

Abstract [en] Historically, the study of the digital has been an amorphous undertaking, spanning multiple fields and disciplines and positioning the digital as a democratic space open to multiple communities and perspectives. Despite this ideology, scholarship, including research on #transformDH to #BlackDH, has demonstrated the need for greater diversity, equity, and inclusion within the digital humanities. Specifically, these hashtags have been used to curate diverse scholarship while demonstrating the need to create a scholarship that focuses on an intersectional understanding of the digital humanities. By drawing on the histories of research and researchers both within and outside of Black studies, this article will illuminate the means and methods of producing scholarship at this critical intersection while speaking to the need for greater inclusion of Black feminist, queer, and justice-oriented perspectives. Pushing back against the impetus to add identity to the title of a field or framework in name but not practice, this article refines the histories and contributions of multiple disciplines and standpoints that should be included and credited when defining the “Black” in Black digital humanities. Whether sparking hashtag activism and crowdsourcing digital labor to developing new terminology and fields, Black digital humanities draws on and develops work that is already critically engaged with the intersection of identity and digital studies in theory and praxis. By focusing on the development of the Black digital humanities and its defining characteristics, this article will also articulate how the nexus of digital research, activism, and pedagogy offers key interventions and new directions for both Black studies and the digital humanities.

[en] Bridging the Gap of Exhibition Design, Instructional Design, and the Learning Sciences for the Future of Black Digital Humanities

Rebecca Y. Bayeck, Instructional Technology & Learning Sciences, Emma Eccles Jones College of Education and Human Services, Utah State University

Abstract [en]

[en] Infrastructural Sovereignty in the Black Atlantic

Dhanashree Thorat, Mississippi State University

Abstract [en]

Case Studies

[en] Decolonial by Design: Building Sekuru's Stories

Jennifer W. Kyker, University of Rochester

Abstract [en] This case study illustrates how carefully designed digital publications can make significant contributions to decolonial scholarship, with a focus on the humanities. Drawing upon my recent experience creating Sekuru's Stories, a co-authored digital humanities project featuring music from Southern Africa, I suggest several ways to engage this decolonizing potential. Among other issues, I discuss which digital platforms may prove most readily accessible to users with limited internet access, outline options for making content available in indigenous languages, and highlight special interactive features such as comparative map viewers and 3D imaging. I also discuss considerations in building digital projects that will prove accessible, robust, and sustainable over time, as well as specific strategies for cultivating a wide audience. One highlight of digital publication is its ability to support multiple navigation options, including both linear and non-linear ways of moving through content. Similarly, digital projects can integrate both narrative and non-narrative formats, blending aspects of monograph and website. When these considerations are taken into account, well-designed digital projects are uniquely capable of reaching a wide audience of scholars, students, and laypeople. As evidence, I analyze data from Google Analytics showing that the primary readership for our project is located in Southern Africa. I argue that digital humanities projects can prove accessible and engaging for non-specialists without sacrificing scholarly rigor, and I call upon scholars to embrace the decolonial potential of digital work. I conclude by outlining concrete steps to place the digital humanities more firmly at the heart of the humanities writ large.

[en] Community-Driven Linked Data Approaches in Builders and Defenders: Nashville's Historical Black Civil War Database

Angela Sutton, Vanderbilt University; Jessica Power, Vanderbilt University; Fisk University

Abstract [en]

Issues in Digital Humanities

[en] Library Professionals: Instrumental in Black Digital Humanities

Jina DuVernay, Clark Atlanta University; Gwinnett County Public Library

Abstract [en]

Articles

[en] The Best Laid Plans: Case Studies of the Loss of Four Early (1996-2003) Digital Humanities Websites

Dr. Drew E. VandeCreek, Northern Illinois University Libraries

Abstract [en] This study examines factors contributing to the loss of four grant funded, free use digital humanities websites funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities' Education Development and Demonstartion Program, 1996-2003: Decision Point! at Auburn University, Hawthorne in Salem at North Shore Community College (Danvers, MA), the New Deal Network at the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute (Hyde Park, NY), and River Web at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The evidence shows that website loss did not occur suuddenly. In all four cases, organizations that accepted program funds to create online materials ultimately failed to develop or continue procedures to manage them effectively. As the organizations or organizational divisions that developed these websites struggled to sustain them or indicated an unwillingness to do so any longer, their creator(s) asked a college, university, or research library to take responsibility for them, without success. Online materials became subject to increased risk of loss in both contexts in part due to rapid technological change,often expressed in accelerating software product update cycles, combined with a general lack of funding and personnel available for addressing it after the end of grant period. Several other elements also played parts in website loss however, often shaping the ways in which technological developments and financial circumstances did their damage. In three instances website creators discovered that common vicissitudes of organizational life, including revised objectives, changing tactics used to achieve them, and new administrative personnel compromised website sustainability. In two cases adminstrators' responsibility for risk management led them to remove legacy websites made obsolete by new technology. In one case research pursung technological innovation in the retrieval and management of large data sets contributed to the loss of a funded resource. Finally, simple, inexplicable failure also contributed to that website's demise. These four cases can provide a digital humanities community increasingly concerned about the sustainability of grant funded online materials with additional evidence of how technological change and financial shortfalls threaten these resources. In doing so, it can also show how more complex organizational dynamics often contribute to website loss.

[en] The Ludii Games Database: A Resource for Computational and Cultural Research on Traditional Board Games

Walter Crist, Leiden University; Matthew Stephenson, Flinders University; Éric Piette, UCLouvain; Cameron Browne, Independent Scholar

Abstract [en]

Author Biographies

URL: http://www.digitalhumanities.org/dhq/vol/18/4/index.html
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Announcements

2024 18.4

Digital Sankofa: Understanding the Past and Futures of Black Digital Humanities

Editors: Rebecca Y. Bayeck and Joseph Bayeck

Front Matter

Articles

Case Studies

Issues in Digital Humanities

Articles

Author Biographies