Critical Digital Curation: Taking Care of Black Women’s Material Culture

Courses 2020 · NE

Instructors

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Aleia Brown

Assistant Director, African American History, Culture and Digital Humanities (AADHum) Initiative University of Maryland

Description

This course will teach participants an approach to theory and practice of critical curation and web publishing for material culture that is grounded in historical inquiry and context. Participants new to digital curation will learn how to use common tools, while more proficient digital humanist might learn new methodologies around critical curation and harm reduction. A survey of Black women’s material culture will form the central case study for the course. Participants will have the opportunity to work with data sets provided by the instructor that surface how Black women have fashioned themselves (through adornment), their environments (through utilitarian, and decorative and fine arts), and their experiences (through in-person and digital aesthetic choices). While the material culture presents compelling cause for celebration and appreciation, they also invite us to confront issues of appropriation, violation of sacred interior spaces, and barriers into the creative economy. By positioning Black women as makers, participants will also understand the dynamics of their work and their role in both historical and contemporary struggles for freedom. Exploration of the social, cultural, political, and economic implications will help participants understand how they might ultimately manage data and develop digital exhibitions of their own. Together, we will explore how our work as digital humanists can abet or reduce the harms that hitch on to hypervisibility and erasure of Black women and their creative work.

Participants will learn to employ historical and critical digital curation practices for any data set. Those with projects in progress are encouraged to join and share their experiences and concerns to enrich our group discussions. The lab portion of this course will involve a deep dive into learning Omeka and Scalar. The lab will also briefly introduce other tools like Audacity, Etherpad, Storymaps, and Unity that participants can use to create more dynamic digital collections. Participants will complete the course with a strong grasp on ethics around image-use, copyright, and digital stewardship.

Together we will explore the following questions:

What do we gain (or lose) by embracing historical inquiry that explores the material and digital worlds?
How can we employ methodologies of care while exploring and exhibiting very interior and sometimes sacred spaces and histories in public?
What processes can we employ that do not aid in the harm that comes with Black women’s hypervisibility and erasure?
What does thoughtful digital curation entail?

Learning Objectives:

By the end of the intensive course, participants will be able to:

Apply the idea of thoughtful digital curation
Design a multi-media online exhibition using Omeka and Scalar
Understand and apply a methodology around studying and making public interior histories

If you have any questions, you should feel free to reach out to me at ambrown@umd.edu.

Pre-reading: Black Women’s Material Culture

Brown, Aleia. “Liberating Threads, Liberating Histories.” Association for State and Local History Blog. https://aaslh.org/liberating-threads-liberating-histories/.

Caldwell, Ellen C. “What Amy Sherald Tells Us With Michelle Obama’s Dress.” JSTOR Daily. https://daily.jstor.org/what-amy-sherald-tells-us-with-michelle-obamas-dress/

Ford, Tanisha C. “How Rihanna’s Fenty Line is Challenging Luxury-Fashion Norms.” The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2019/06/rihannas-fenty-line-kwame-brathwaite-grandassa-models/591199/

Parker, Lonnae O’Neal. “‘Will to Adorn’ examines African American Styles of Dress, Identity at Folklife Festival.” The Washington Post.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/museums/will-to-adorn-examines-african-american-styles-of-dress-identity-at-folklife-festival/2013/06/20/b2b0af7c-d787-11e2-a016-92547bf094cc_story.html

Sanders, Jasmine. “A Black Legacy, Wrapped Up in Fur.” New York Times.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/31/style/fur-black-women-history.html

Sargent, Antwaun. “Celebrating the Grace of Black Women’s Beauty.” New York Times.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/29/lens/celebrating-the-grace-of-black-women.html

Pre-reading: Digital Publishing/Exhibiting

Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for the Visual Arts

Muñoz, Trevor. “Data Curation as Publishing for the Digital Humanities,” 2013.

Summers, Ed. “The Web’s Past is Not Evenly Distributed.” MITH Blog. https://mith.umd.edu/webs-past-not-evenly-distributed/