Faculty Colloquium Series: Amy Earhart (ENGL) 02/16/2021
“A Compromised Infrastructure: Digital Humanities, African American Literary History and Technologies of Identity “
POSTPONED. New date to be determined.
Zoom Meeting information:
Meeting ID:910 9100 2454
Password: Earhart
https://tamu.zoom.us/j/91091002454?pwd=ekkxem5ENWRhN0dPWVRUcWdXa1FiZz09
Dr. Amy Earhart
Assistant Professor, English, 2020-21 Glasscock Internal Faculty Fellow
Abstract:
This paper is part of a longer book project which puts the database and the anthology, both central and seemingly naturalized infrastructures, in conversation to reveal the ways in which both impact meaning of race and gender. Utilizing DAPLA, a database of 100 years of American and African American literature anthologies, to reexamine seemingly settled issues of canon through anthology production and the rise of the digital, the project reveals that we are actually retreating from broad representations of American literature. Drawing on critical algorithmic scholarship and employing multiple lenses of data, digital tools, and analysis, the monograph considers how we might utilize the structure of a database, the discrete columns, the regularized vocabulary, and the algorithmic manipulations of that data to better represent and interpret literary history through digital humanities’ techniques.
The Faculty Colloquium offers faculty an opportunity to discuss a work-in-progress with faculty and graduate students from different disciplines. By long-standing practice, colloquium presenters provide a draft of their current research, which is made available to members of the Glasscock Center listserv. Each colloquium begins with the presenter’s short (10-15 minute) exposition of the project, after which the floor is open for comments and queries. The format is by design informal, conversational, and interdisciplinary.
The paper is available to members of the Center’s listserv, or by contacting the Glasscock Center by phone at (979) 845-8328 or by e-mail at glasscock@tamu.edu.
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