I feel like this post is mostly updates on this, that, and everything, but it has been a very logistics heavy pruning kind of few weeks. The beginning of the semester is always a bit chaotic and this semester even more so. There is writing. There is mentoring. There is producing (events, projects, spaces). There is communing, convening and facilitating (i.e. teaching). There is a lot and so much of it needed to get situated in time for the start of the semester. The pace of academia is a brutal one. I’ve found myself here, on this pace, despite my best efforts, so I’m also taking this week of the new moon (shout out to Chani Nicolas getting her Android app up in stores, finally, I was READY!) to reset and recommit to pulling more balance into my days.
That said, here we go….
Updates
Dr. Nadejda Webb and I hosted the first session of our four session DH 101 course for LifexCode members and affiliates/friends. The first session, “The Five Flavors of DH, or “Why so Grumpy Dr. JMJ?” was a fun, fast-paced, rocking ride through what I described are the five flavors of DH (Digital Humanities as situated in the academy, as distinction I make in this essay on the 4DH). Imagine my surprise when no one in the room had heard of THATCamp except me and Kim Gallon?! What a time to be alive! It was a blast and for anyone wondering what the five flavors of DH are, according to moi, a slide from the session is below:
The next session is October 11th; the sessions are open to LifexCode members only. Learn more about lifexcode.org.
Some post-summer updates include coming back from the first Diaspora Solidarities Lab Rememory Lab, hosted by Yagrumo in Puerto Rico and the second Keywords for Black Louisiana summer workshop, which included a visit to St. Landry Parish. Still processing so much from those trips, but if a picture captures my excitement, nervousness, amazement, confusion, hope, exhaustion, adrenaline, and fear all at once, it is the one Jose Arturo Ballester shot at Limaní, the site of the Camp DSL for the first half of the trip.
Finally, Black World Nine is BACK!!! I hosted the first full session on the theme of “Black Women Writers at Work.” The readings are below. They hit hard. That so many of the Black women writers spoke to the same issues, past and present, means something that we discussed as a group about how far we have and haven’t come. And it is something I’m still processing after that session.
September 5 - Dr. JMJ - Black Women Writers at Work
Deborah Gray White. “My History in History,” edited by Deborah Gray White, 85–100. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2008). [Google Folder]
Christian, Barbara. “Black Feminist Process: In the Midst Of...” In Black Feminist Criticism: Perspectives on Black Women Writers, ix–xv. 1985. [Google Folder]
Goodson, Martia Graham. “Ophelia and Me: Tribute to an Early Narrative Research.” In Oral Narrative Research with Black Women: Collecting Treasures, edited by Kim Marie Vaz. SAGE Publications, 1997.
Wilkinson, Crystal. “Asking Questions and Excavating Memory: Creating Complex Fictional Characters.” In How We Do It: Black Writers on Craft, Practice, and Skill, edited by Jericho Brown. New York, NY: Amistad, 2023. [Google Folder]
Woodson, Jacqueline. “What Do You Want From Me.” In How We Do It: Black Writers on Craft, Practice, and Skill, edited by Jericho Brown. New York, NY: Amistad, 2023. [Google Folder]
Tate, Claudia. “Alexis de Veaux.” In Black Women Writers at Work. La Vergne: Haymarket Books, 2023. [Google Folder]
Johnson, Jessica Marie. “All the Stars Are Closer:’ Fugitives in the Machine & Black Resistance in a Digital Age.” In Ideas in Unexpected Places: Reimagining Black Intellectual History, edited by Leslie M. Alexander, Brandon R. Byrd, and Russell Rickford, 277–92. Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 2022.
Figueroa-Vásquez, Yomaira, and Jessica Marie Johnson. “Hoodrat Praxis in a Time of Love and Fury.” In More Than Our Pain: Affect and Emotion in the Era of Black Lives Matter, edited by Beth Hinderliter and Steve Peraza, 87–99. Albany: SUNY Press, 2021. [Google Folder]
Like I said, mostly updates, mostly out in the world, mostly being a person with and among people. But I’m back to research and scrapbook posts next week and plenty on my desktop to sift through. See you back here soon.
jmj