Digital Humanities and the Infrastructures of Race in African-American Literature

Abstract

"Can a Computer Be Racist?" examines how technological infrastructure and algorithms interact with African- American authored literary texts to construct and deconstruct racial identities. By employing multiple lenses of data, digital tools, and analysis, the project reveals how seemingly naturalized technological infrastructures impact meaning through an interactive Scalar project and reposited data, visualizations and project documents for use and remix. Further, the digital project is designed to explore questions of preservation and open data, particularly important to Black literary studies where we continue to struggle to represent the fullness of cultural expression within current infrastructures.