Digital Humanities and African American/African Diaspora Studies Conference

Drumbeats from Matthew Kirschenbaum tell us that an exciting conference on Digital Humanities and African American/African Diaspora Studies is scheduled for May 1-3, 2008 at the University of Maryland.

Right now you have the opportunity to be a participant yourself. The Conference seeks posters or demonstrations that highlight digital humanities projects, tools or techniques or work in progress as they relate to the themes of the conference. They especially encourage submissions from independent scholars and scholars associated with academic institutions. Posters may include a demonstration, traditional printed poster, or a combination of both. Wireless internet access will be available at the poster venue.


Short abstracts (250-500 words) should be submitted to Neil Fraistat by February 25, 2008. The proposals will be reviewed by the planning committee and successful applicants will be notified by March 10, 2008. The poster session will take place on the afternoon of May 3, 2008.

This conference will address the increasing centrality of digitization to the archiving of materials, as well as the growth of digital technology in the teaching, scholarship and artistic production in the field of African American/African Diaspora Studies. The conference is a collaboration involving the African American/African Diaspora Area Group of the English Department, the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities (MITH), and the School of Architecture, Planning & Preservation, as well as other faculty and students from the College of Arts and Humanities (ARHU) and the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences (BSOS).

The conference, the first of its kind, will bring together approximately 150 national and international scholars, high school and middle school teachers, artists, students and attendees to discuss a growing body of work that has not as yet benefited from an organized forum that would allow practitioners to meet one another not only to discuss on-going projects, but also to debate the theoretical, methodological, and pedagogical issues raised by the intersection of the fields of Digital Humanities and African American/African Diaspora Studies. As the field of African American/African Diaspora Studies can benefit from a thoughtful consideration of the application of new media tools, so, too, can the field of digital humanities benefit from a focused discussion of scholarship informed by critical race studies.

The program will begin on May 1st and 2nd with hands-on workshops, including one sponsored by the TEI Consortium and funded by the NEH, which will provide a practical introduction to text encoding and another that will focus on navigating online resources in African American and African Diaspora Studies.

The workshops will be followed by a panel showcasing work by scholars in the field of African American/African Diaspora Studies that address or make use of digital technologies and new media. The chair and the respondents will be University of Maryland graduate students.

The keynote address by Abdul Alkalimat (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) will be followed by a reception and the presentation of a multi-media art installation. The last day will be taken up by panels and seminars, one of which will be geared toward middle and high school teachers; digital "poster" sessions, using laptops, to introduce projects by students, faculty and independent scholars; and a closing multi-media performance.

Confirmed participants include Howard Dodson, Anna Everett, Jerome Handler, Paul D. Miller (AKA DJ Spooky), Alexander Weheliye, and Pamela Z.

Reach out to Matthew on (301) 405-8505 if you have questions or wish to discuss further.