Doing Black Digital Humanities with Radical Intentionality

Based on the auto-ethnographic work of a team of scholars who developed the first Black Digital Humanities program at a research institution, this book details how to centralize Black feminist praxes of care, ethics, and Black studies in the digital humanities (DH).

In this important and timely collection, the authors Catherine Knight Steele, Jessica H. Lu, and Kevin C. Winstead―of the first team of the African American Digital Humanities Initiative―center Black scholars, Black thought, and Black studies in creating digital research and programming. Providing insight into acquiring funding, building and maintaining community, developing curricula, and establishing a national network in the field, this book moves Black persons and Black thought from the margins to the center with a set of best practices and guiding questions for scholars, students, and practitioners developing programming, creating work agreements, building radically intentional pedagogy and establishing an ethical future for Black DH.

This is essential reading for researchers, students, scholars, and practitioners working in the fields of DH and Black studies, as well as graduate students, faculty, and administrators working in humanities disciplines who are interested in forming centers, courses, and/or research programs in Black digital studies.

Catherine Knight Steele is an Associate Professor of Communication at the University of Maryland. She served as the founding director of the African American Digital Humanities initiative and now directs the Black Communication and Technology Lab and is Co-PI for the Mellon-funded Digital Inquiry Speculation Collaboration and Optimism Network.Dr. Steele's research has been published in journals such as Social Media + Society, Feminist Media Studies, and Television and New Media. She is the author of the award-winning Digital Black Feminism (2021).

Jessica H. Lu is Associate Director of the Design Cultures & Creativity (DCC) living-learning program in the Honors College at the University of Maryland, College Park, and an Adjunct Professor in the Master's program in Engaged & Public Humanities at Georgetown University. She formerly served as a founding Postdoctoral Associate and, later, Assistant Director of the African American Digital Humanities Initiative. Dr. Lu's research has been published in Rhetoric and Public Affairs and Information, Communication & Society, while her teaching pursues care- and justice-centered approaches to digital humanities, creative language practice, and technological innovation.

Kevin C. Winstead is a Project on Rhetorics of Equity, Access, Computation, and Humanities (PREACH) Lab Postdoctoral Fellow in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He formerly served as the CLIR Postdoctoral Fellow for Black Data Curation with the Center for Black Digital Research at Pennsylvania State University. Kevin was the founding Project Manager for the African American Digital Humanities Initiative. Dr. Winstead’s research has been published in Ethnic and Racial Studies, Sociology Compass, and Critical Intersections in Contemporary Curriculum & Pedagogy. Kevin’s teaching focuses on restorative learning practices, justice-centered digital studies, and critical histories.