The Price and Promise of Data: Black Studies & Digital Humanities in the 21^st Century

The Urgency of Black Digital Humanities – Howard University Symposium

Washington, DC (Held virtually due to COVID 19)

February 19, 2021

Today, we live in an era of increasing automation. Expansive, complex data sets can reveal patterns, trends, and associations, especially relating to human behavior and interactions. As we enter a world of mass customization, we need to be on the lookout for the benefits and challenges of using large datasets to study and evaluate black people.

What might this world of data mean for how we envision Black Studies in the 21^st century? What is the price and promise of us – folks deeply engaged in Black Studies work – utilizing data?

Today, we have increasingly large bodies of data available (just growing and growing and growing). Our challenge and our opportunity are to navigate places for Black Studies in a world with so much data.