Submission Deadline: Call for Papers, Special Issue on Black Studies, Digital Humanities Quarterly, January 17, 2020

Digital Humanities Quarterly, one of the leading open-source journals on digital humanities, will be hosting a special issue on Black studies titled “Between DH and Me: Black Studies in/for the Rising Digital Humanities Generation.” The call for proposals can be found attached as a PDF as well as at this link: http://bit.ly/between-DH-and-me-CFP.

The co-editors for this special issue are Alanna Prince, Cara Marta Messina, and Izetta Autumn Mobley. As co-editors, we are committed to making this process as transparent and accessible to scholars who are early in their career.

Submissions are due: January 17th, 2020.

About this special issue:
Digital Humanities is in the midst of a paradigm shift. This realignment requires comprehensive engagements with equity and justice, which Jessica Marie Johnson calls “black digital practice.” Guided by initiatives such as #transformDH, Black Digital Humanities Projects and Resources collaborative document, Association for Computers and the Humanities Conference, Postcolonial Digital Humanities, and the 2018 Intentionally Digital, Intentionally Black conference, DH is poised to address histories of exclusion and broaden how the field understands the foundational role of Black studies. The call to #transformDH, most notably by addressing race and racism, has been issued by a cadre of critically important scholars. Calls for DH to meaningfully engage with critical race theory and Black studies resonate with emerging DH scholars. This special issue of Digital Humanities Quarterly aims to highlight and canonize the rising generation’s take on Black studies in DH, including their methodologies, pedagogies, projects, and practices.

The goal of this special issue is to set the tone for the field’s future by recognizing Black studies, politics, and scholars as part of the DH canon, not a “niche” pocket of the field. In order to achieve this goal, this issue will explore the state of Black studies in DH through the eyes and work of rising scholars to think through the ways in which Black politics and ideologies are embedded in methods, pedagogy, projects, and practices. Ideal proposals will use DH tools or methods to integrate or break down the ways in which Black politics are present or absent in DH projects and teaching. We seek to include all rising scholars who merge Black studies, the study of Blackness, or Black cultural production and DH. We particularly encourage rising Black DH scholars who restoratively study Black perspectives and materials.

By providing a platform for rising scholars to be in conversation with influential scholars and scholarship, this special issue can make clear a lineage of DH work that centers Black studies. In order to acknowledge this lineage, this special issue will spotlight short reflections by influential scholars who have paved the path to transform DH in their works by integrating race, Black Studies, and DH. Several influential scholars have agreed to write these reflections, including Jessica Marie Johnson, Moya Bailey, Roopika Risam, Angel David Nieves, Bethany Nowviskie, Élika Ortega, and Elizabeth Losh.

The process of this special issue:
As the CFP mentions, we will first be collecting proposals and then selecting proposals to be turned into articles. This way, authors do not need to commit an enormous amount of time to produce a longer piece of writing/research that may not get accepted. DHQ & the potential peer-reviewers still reserves the right to potentially reject any accepted proposals that have been transformed into articles, but we co-editors will be working hard to revise with the authors and make the pieces as strong as possible.

Proposals will be submitted through this form: http://bit.ly/between-DH-and-me-proposal-form.

They will also be hosting a short workshop (on January 10th, 2020) before the proposal is due to make the acceptance process more transparent and hopefully help scholars produce the most effective proposals. To sign up for this virtual workshop, visit: http://bit.ly/between-DH-and-me-workshop