CFP: Intentionally Digital, Intentionally Black Conference

The University of Maryland’s African American History, Culture, and Digital Humanities Initiative (AADHum) has posted a call for proposals for their first national conference, to be held at the University of Maryland on October 18-20. The conference’s theme is “Intentionally Digital, Intentionally Black”:

What happens to digital humanities inquiry when we begin with Black culture, Black thought, and Black persons at the center of our endeavors? How does this shift challenge and expand both the humanities and the digital? What happens to Black and African American humanities research when we lead with the digital?

Interdisciplinary inquiry into both the online practices of black users and humanities research focused on black history and culture using digital tools has expanded in the past decade. Too often, this work happens on the margins of established disciplines, boundaries, and paradigms. Rather than arriving at black digital research as an afterthought or a tactic to achieve “diversity”, privileging black theory and black culture in our scholarship can provide alternate paradigms through which to understand the digital and the humanistic.

Proposals are due April 9, 2018.