Black Spatial Humanities: Theories, Methods, and Praxis in Digital Humanities (A Follow-up NEH ODH Summer Institute Panel) AngelDavidNievesanieves@hamilton.eduHamiltonCollege,UnitedStatesofAmericaKimGallonkgallon@purdue.eduPurdueUniversity,UnitedStatesofAmericaDavidJ.Kimdjkim@udel.eduUniversityofDelaware,UnitedStatesofAmericaScottNesbitsnesbit@uga.eduUniversityofGeorgia-Athens,UnitedStatesofAmericaBryanCarterbryancarter@email.arizona.eduUniversityofArizona-Tucson,UnitedStatesofAmericaJessicaJohnsonjmjohnso@gmail.comJohnsHopkinsUniversity,UnitedStatesofAmerica

Introductory / Framing Remarks Dr. David J. Kim Dr.KimGallon’sessay,“MakingaCasefortheBlackDigitalHumanities,”inthemostrecentDebatesseriesvolume argues for the continued development of a“relationship between the digital humanities andAfricana/African American/Black studies … so as tohighlight how technology, employed in thisunderexaminedcontext,canfurtherexposehumanityasaracializedsocialconstruction”(Gallon2016:42).With the recent proliferation of projects includingBlack Gotham, Slave Revolt in Jamaica, 1760-1761,FreedomontheMove,andT-RACESanemergingfocuson the role that geospatial technologies can have inengagingwith the history of race across the African

Diaspora has become an important area of digitalscholarship. Thishybrid90-minutepanel isatimelyfollow-up to a summer 2016NEHODH Institute forAdvancedTopicsintheDigitalHumanities,“SpaceandPlaceinAfricana/BlackStudies:AnInstituteonSpatialHumanities Theories, Methods and Practice forAfricanaStudies”.ThepanelincludesInstitutefacultyinabroaddiscussionregardingrigorous,community-based,andappliedmethodologiesthatnowconstituteafocusonraceinthespatialhumanities.Panelistswilllimit their presentation tonomore than10minutesfollowed by a 30 minute Q&A working session todiscuss the broad parameters of the sub-field andfuturescholarlyapproaches. Spatial humanities has transformed the work ofresearchers, enabling profound considerations ofspace in relationship tohumanbehaviorandcultureacrosstimeandplace. Arthistory,literature,history,philosophyandreligion–allnotablefieldsfromacrossthe humanities – have benefited from scientific andquantitatively oriented technologies and tools tobetter understand the intersections between spaceandthehumancondition.Itisparticularlytimelynowto question space in relation to African-descendedpeople’s ability to traverse and negotiate spaces inwestern societies.Thehistoryof theBlackbodyandAmerican public and private space is particularlyproblematicalasthepresenceoftheBlackbodytherehas been largely unwanted during long stretches ofAmericanhistory.Indeed,bothgeographicalandsocialspatial differentiation in the United States and thelargerwesternworldhas largelybeenpredicatedonracial difference, exclusion and segregation. Leadingproponents of this emerging sub-field, Gallon andNieves,areslatedtoco-editanewdigitalbookserieswith the University of Georgia Press. Black spatialhumanitiesisasub-fieldofthespatialhumanitiesthat–inlightofthefluidityofspaceinrelationtopeopleofAfrican descent in the United States, Africa and theAfricanDiaspora–studiesthechildrenoftheDiasporaacross specific places and times within anepistemological framework that is predicated on anethicofanti-racismandliberation. The panel will highlight some of the mostinnovative scholarship in both analog and digitalformatsthatrely,inpart,onnewtechnologyandformsofdigitalscholarlypublication. Thepanelwilladdressthefollowingquestions:

• How do the spatial humanities andAfricana/Black Studies work together topositandpracticeadifferentwayofknowingandimaginingtheworld?

• How do racial identities impose a certainframeworkonourunderstandingofspace?

• How can the spatial humanities help usexperience the lived realities ofBlack/Brownbodies?

• Howdomaps/mappingtechnologiesreflectand/orcountertherealities(thedynamism)ofBlacklife?

• How can spatial technologies provide uswith a way of understanding the forms ofinhumanity attributed to or placed uponBlack/Brownpeople?

Modeling the Nineteenth-Century Colored Conventions Movement Dr. David J. Kim Throughout the nineteenth century, free andfugitiveblacksacrosstheUSorganizedmorethan150state and national Colored Conventions. Lessprominent than the contemporaneous abolitionistmovement in US History writ large, the ColoredConventionsmovementrepresentsacomplexnetworkof black political and religious leaders, intellectualsand entrepreneurs dedicated to the cause of racialjustice in education, labor, citizenship andinternational human rights. As an introductory casestudyforthepanel,thispresentationwilldiscusstheColored Conventions Project (P. Gabrielle Foreman,faculty director) and its various digital andcollaborativelayersofarchivesbuilding.Reflectingonitsinitialstages,aswellaslookingforwardtothenextphaseofdevelopment,itwilldiscussthechallengesof"modeling," as a digital humanities' methodologicalframing,both the interpretativeand the community-building possibilities of this archive: from thediscovery of documents to the design of theforthcomingdatabase.

Figure 1. Sample Map, Conventions by City, Colored Con-

ventions Project

Virtual Harlem 4.0: Experiencing the Humanities through Virtual and Augmented Realities Dr. Bryan Carter As technology continues to evolve at a blisteringpace, digital humanists strive to incorporateways inwhichthesenewtoolsforresearch,datavisualization,hapticsandmobiletechnologiesfitintoourownwork.Of themany exciting tech developments, augmentedreality and virtual reality are poised to make asignificantimpactonthewayweteach,researchandexperiencethehumanities.Thistalkwillfocusonnewdevelopments within the Virtual Harlem Project toincludemotion and facial capture, data visualizationandfour-dimensional(4D)learningexperiences.

Figure 2. 3D Model, Cotton Club, Virtual Harlem 4.0

The Spatial and Digital Dimensions of the History of the Black Press Dr. Kim Gallon In geopolitical terms, Africana Studies scholarshave studied everydaymobilities, which include theflow of people, objects and ideas backward andforward across the Atlantic Ocean. Black people'sabilitytomoveacrosstimeandspaceisacornerstonefor understanding their social condition. Thus,numerous scholars have documented and theorizedthe integral connectionsbetweenblackmobility andcitizenship,freedomandresistance.Thispapermovesbeyondgeospatialdimensionstocriticallyassessandexamineliteralspacesoccupiedbyideasandidentitiesintheblackpress.Atthesametime,theuseofdigitizednewspapers shows how black news as space can bemapped onto broader concepts concerning blackpeople'sstruggletomaketheirhumanitymanifest,aswell as to think critically about the various digitaltopographiesofhistoricalblacknewspapers.

Enslaved Women’s Narratives in Eastern Virginia: Intersectional Approaches in GIS Dr. Scott Nesbit Muchworkinthespatialhumanitiesdependsupontheabstractionandreductionofhistoricalprocesses,events, and, most problematically, actors, into datapoints, perhaps visualized as simple dots on amap.Scholars including Johanna Drucker and MiriamPosner have argued for more nuanced, humanities-basedapproachestodatavisualization.Yet,ifwerejectinheriteddatavisualizationtoolsandstatistics-basedapproaches, scholarsmay find at least some helpfulanalytical possibilities foreclosed. This talk willexplore the tension at the heart of humanities datavisualization inablackstudiescontextbyexaminingoneparticularquestionwithin thehistoryof slaveryand emancipation: who was escaping into UnitedStateslinesduringtheAmericanCivilWar?ThepaperwillargueforGIS-basedapproachesthataresensitiveto the intersectional identities and the actions offormerly enslaved women in eastern Virginia byexaminingrunawayslaveadvertisements.

Figure 3. Emancipating Slavery Interface, University of Rich-

mond

3D Forensics & Historical Reconstructions: Documenting Human Rights Violations During the 1976 Soweto Uprisings Dr. Angel David Nieves Over the past decade, scholars and communityleadershaveexperimentedwiththeuseofnewdigitaltechnologies to tell the history of the anti-apartheidmovement in South Africa. Technologies now at ourdisposal allow us to layer victim testimony inhypertexts using multiple tools for mapping, textmining,and3Dvisualizations.Digitalhumanities(DH)may also help analyze documentation so as toreconstruct and recover an alternative historicalnarrative in the face of conventional wisdom orofficializing histories for the foreign tourist market.The potential layering of the many narratives alsohelps lay bare themessiness of archivemaking, themethodologies of digital ethnography, and, inparticular, the endangered nature of those archivesacrossSouthAfricarelatedtotheSowetoUprisingsofJune1976.Asa3Dandvirtualrealityenabledplatform(builtatoptheUnityengine),theSocialJusticeHistoryPlatform is able to represent both 2D geospatialinformation(suchasmaps,photographs,andrecords)and3Drepresentationsof landscapes, locations, and3D models of historical buildings and objects. Theproject combines traditional ethnographic and oralhistoryfieldworkwith3Dtechnologiesinthepursuitof documenting past human rights violations by theformerapartheidregime.

Figure 4. Social Justice History Platform Interface, Soweto

Historical GIS Project.

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Bodenhamer, D., Corrigan, J. andHarris, T. (2010). The

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Brown, V. (2016). “Narrative Interface for New Media

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Carter,B.(2010).“VirtualHarlem:BuildingCommunity.”In

SaraGuth and FrancescaHelm (eds),Telecollaboration2.0:Language,LiteraciesandInterculturalLearninginthe21stCentury.PeterLang,pp.365-374.

Gallon, K. (2016) “Making a Case for the Black Digital

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DigitalHistoriographies.” InSingh, J. andKim,D. (eds),ThePostcolonialWorld.Routledge,pp.

Nieves,A.(2016).“DigitalReconstructionasPreservation:Alternative Methods of Practice for Difficult and LostHistoriesoftheAfricanAmericanPast.”InPage,M.andMiller,M. (eds),Bending the Future: Fifty Ideas for theNext Fifty Years of Historic Preservation. University ofMassachusettsPress,pp.179-183.