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Naajidah is an artist, writer, and educator pursuing English Graduate Studies. She has a passion for working with youth and culturally responsive teaching. These points of care are reflected through her organizing, research, and workshop facilitations which utilize community-engaged and participatory research methods as well as digital humanities. As a recording and performance artist, Naajidah views creative research and technology as tools that allow for collective healing, knowledge production, and refusal.
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Marina del Sol is a Master Instructor in the English Department at Howard University. She received a Ph.D. in Folklore and Anthropology from the Américo Paredes Center for Cultural Studies at The University of Texas at Austin and a B.A. in interdisciplinary studies from the University of California at Berkeley. As a digital humanities scholar, Dr. del Sol’s work focuses on citizenship in the public sphere. During the spring of 2021, she served as an Expert Specialist for “Ensuring Scholarly Access to Digital Records,” hosted by Virginia Tech and the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). Her current project, “Zora Neale Hurston: A Pre-Research Guide,” focuses on archival research, cultural documentation, and ethnographic writing.
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Dr. Clarissa West-White is a Reference Librarian/Instructor at Bethune Cookman University where she began as an Assistant Professor of English. She holds degrees in Creative Writing, Curriculum & Instruction and Information. She’s a recent alumni of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture Robert Frederick Smith Internship and Fellowship, Key West Literary Seminar, Digital POWRR Institute, OER for HBCU Academic Librarians Summit, and NISO Plus. She’s married to Dr. Headley White and they have two sons, Henson and Houston.
https://drcwestwhite.wixsite.com/drcwestwhite
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Monet Timmons graduated from Emory University in 2018 with a B.A. in English and African American Studies. She is currently a second year English PhD student at the University of Delaware. Her research investigates 19th and 20th enslaved Black women and Black women writers in the archive with an emphasis on historical and public memory. In addition to archival research, Monet engages with digital scholarship to understand the lived experiences of Black women. She has curated digital exhibits pertaining to the activism and lecture circuit of Frances Ellen Watkins Harper and the correspondence between Alice Dunbar-Nelson and Edwina B. Kruse. Monet's interdisciplinary work considers the memory-work established 19th and 20th century Black women and the role of scholars to continue this work today.
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Ashley Simmons is a current Ph.D. student at the University of Kansas. She graduated from Howard University with her Bachelor’s and Bowie State University with a Master’s in English. Most of her research has focused on the exploration of queer futures as heterotopian sites. Through the BBIP Scholars program, Ashley hopes to expand upon her other research area, black transgressive fiction. In addition to her studies, Ashley has a background in media education and civic engagement in the after school setting. Students she has worked with received awards for their documentary on the intersection of police brutality with a national lack of resources dedicated to student engagement during and after school. Ashley hopes to continue her passion for media production and education while pursuing her Ph.D. at KU.
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Jimisha Relerford is a Master Instructor in the Department of English at Howard University, where she teaches first-year composition courses and serves as Director of Writing Center. She is also in her fourth year of the doctoral program in English. Her scholarship focuses on African American literature, language, rhetorics, and archives and the intersections thereof. For her academic and pedagogical work, Jimisha has received the Conference on College Composition and Communication’s Scholars for the Dream Award and the Digital Media and Composition Institute’s Cindy and Dicky Selfe Fellowship, and she is currently a member of Digital Black Lit (Literatures & Literacies) and Composition (DBLAC). For her BBIP project, Jimisha will examine the archives’ holdings for uses of African American women writers’ use of humor in works of fiction from the early 20th-century to the present. She also hopes to explore the BBIP’s acquisition and processing activities as well as the methods and methodologies, both traditional and digital, associated with African American literary archives.
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Tabitha Parker is an assistant professor of English Literature and composition at Clark State Community College in Springfield, Ohio. A recent transplant from Gulf Coast State College in Panama City, Florida, she has been teaching in higher education for over eight years where much of her focus has been on African-American Literature and diversity initiatives on both a local and global scale.
Mrs. Parker earned her bachelor’s degree in English Literature and a Master of Fine Arts in Writing from Lindenwood University in Saint Charles, Missouri, and a Graduate Certification in Multicultural and Transnational Literatures from East Carolina University. She has been a leader creating curriculum for African-American Literature courses at the collegiate level, and she regularly presents on topics of current cultural issues, particularly that of how the history of slavery in the U.S. continues to shape present day society. She was co-creator of the grant-funded DIVE program, which worked to promote diversity and inclusion for students seeking employment and mentorship within the Bay County area. Additionally, in 2016 she was co-winner of the Association of Florida College’s Equity Commission Best Practices for Diversity and Inclusion Studies, in regard to her work both inside and outside of the classroom.
Currently, Mrs. Parker resides in Dayton, Ohio, with her husband and two children.
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Georgene Bess Montgomery is an Associate Professor and Interim Chair of the Department of English and Modern Languages at Clark Atlanta University. She received her B.A. and M.A. in English from Georgia Southern University and her Ph.D. in English from the University of Maryland. An initiated priestess of Shango, she is the author of The Spirit and the Word: A Theory of Spirituality in Africana Literary Criticism, which utilizes a method informed by the ideas and worldview of Ifa, an ancient African spiritual system, to unlock deeper levels of meaning in the writings of African peoples. The former president of National Council for Black Studies, Bess Montgomery continues to serve as Chair of the Student Committee which includes the Terry Kershaw Student Essay Contest, the Ankh Maat Wedju Honor Society, and the Dr. Tsehloane C. Keto Student Leadership Development and Mentorship Program.
Bess Montgomery has published and spoken extensively on a variety of subjects but also continues to publish scholarly essays that employ the Ifa Paradigm as a lens through which she analyzes Africana literary texts. Some of her publications are “Spiritual Eroticism and Real Good Loving in Tina McElroy Ansa’s The Hand I Fan With.” Religions. www.mdpi.com/journal/religions. April, 2019; “Learning and Knowing Mari Evans.” The Pierian Literary Journal. 2017-2018. pp. 53-63; “Healing in the Name of Spirit: Conjuring Women in Maryse Conde’s I, Tituba: Black Witch of Salem.”; Zoe: Journal of Social Transformation. Vo1. 2. 2018: 62-74. www.zijst.com.; “Reading Black Through the Looking Glass: Decoding the Encoding in African Diasporic Women’s Literature.” African American Studies. Ed. Jeanette Davidson. 2018; “Healing the Bruised and Mothering the Motherless: The “Ájé in Elizabeth Nunez’ Bruised Hibiscus; Africology: Journal of Pan African Studies. Africology: Journal of Pan African Studies. vol. 10, no. 8, September 2017, pp. 11-24.
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Originally from Atlanta, Georgia, Ivoree Malcom is the Head of Circulation at the Anderson County Library in Anderson, South Carolina. Since July 2012, the Anderson County Library has employed Malcom in various capacities, including: youth services clerk, library assistant & more. Conducting genealogical research in the local South Carolina Room sparked Malcom’s interest in learning more via research about Black American history & culture. Currently, Malcom is pursuing her Masters of Library & Information Sciences via Valdosta State University & will graduate in December 2020. In addition, Malcom possesses a Bachelors of Human Services with a minor in Behavioral Sciences from Anderson University.
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kYmberly Keeton is a native of Fort Worth, Texas. She is a graduate of the University of North Texas with a Master’s in Library Science. In her present role, she documents and archives African American narratives in Austin, Texas – The State Capitol. As the African American Community Archivist and Librarian at the Austin History Center, Austin Public Library, Keeton’s work is about forming collaborative partnerships, building relationships with the community, and collecting, archiving, and sharing experiences about Austin’s African American History in the state capitol. The art curator is also the founder of ART | library deco, an online African American digital art library. Keeton is the 2019 Honoree Recipient in of the Austin, Texas Civic Futures Award for Community Engagement and Inclusion. In addition, she is a 2019 Inductee into The Douglass Club of Austin, Texas – Mary Church Terrell District. Currently, kYmberly Keeton is writing a scholarly book about African American art & creative librarians as social advocates for change from the south. “I’m rebelling against being handed a career, like, “You’re the next this; you’re the next that.” I’m not the next anything, I’m the first me.” – kYmberly Keeton
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Megan Goins-Diouf specializes in Africana archives and black bibliography. She is a trained archivist and librarian, receiving her MSLIS degree from the Palmer School of Library and Information Science at the University of Long Island. She works at the Toledo Public Schools as a substitute teacher.
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LaTonzia Evans is an Instructor of English at Mississippi Valley State University, and she is a PhD candidate in English at the University of Memphis. Her concentration is in Literary and Cultural studies with an emphasis in African American Literature. Her research interests include Women and Gender Studies, 19th Century, and Digital Humanities. LaTonzia earned her BS and MEd at William Carey University in Hattiesburg, MS.
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Dana Chandler is a trained archivist and historian, receiving his graduate degree from Auburn University. He works as the University Archivist/Associate Professor at Tuskegee University and is the co-author of To Raise Up the Man Farthest Down: Tuskegee University’s Advancements in Human Health, 1881-1987 (University of Alabama Press, 2018). He has had over seventy presentations at a variety of venues and teaches history in the Department of History and Political Science. He specializes in the history of Tuskegee University.
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Seretha D. Williams, Ph.D. is professor of English and Women's and Gender Studies at Augusta University. She earned a M.A. and Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of Georgia. Her research areas are in Africana Studies, women's literature, trauma theory, the Black Chicago Renaissance, and the Black Arts Movement. She focuses on the work of Margaret Walker (Alexander). Dr. Williams is co-editor of the collection Afterimages of Slavery: Essays on Appearances in Recent American Films, Literature, Television and Other Media. Two recent publications, “Gary, Indiana on the Cusp of Greatness: Richard G. Hatcher and the National Black Political Convention of 1972” (2018) and “’Mother of Us Poets’: Margaret Walker and the Black Arts Movement” (forthcoming 2019) revisit the late 1960s and early 1970s in an attempt to include voices and political spaces frequently omitted from discussions of the Black Power and Black Arts movements. Additionally, Dr. Williams is a digital humanities fellow at Augusta University and a graduate student in Library Information Science at Valdosta State University.
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Joyce White is an Assistant Professor of English in African American Literature at Winthrop University. She received her Ph.D. in Humanities with a primary focus in African American Studies from Clark Atlanta University, and earned a BA and MA in English, with a focus in Creative Writing and literature, from Florida State University. Her research interests include 19th, 20th, and 21st century African American and diasporic literature as well as African cosmological and spiritual continuities in the diaspora.
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Susan Weeber works on 20th- and 21st-century African American and Caribbean literature. Her current book project, Poetics of Interruption: Media and Form in Black Radical Literature, examines experimental Black diasporic literature’s engagement with other media, particularly music, film, and photography. Susan also writes about race and science fiction and the Haitian Revolution. Currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Oregon, Susan has also worked and taught at the University of Rochester and Pennsylvania State University.
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Dr. Tyechia Thompson received her PhD in English Literature from Howard University in 2017. Her digital projects include a geospatial literary tool for James Baldwin’s references to Paris, an Omeka exhibit of James Emanuel’s poetry, and a Scalar article examining a work of James Lamar. She has taught courses in African American literature, expository writing, and Hip Hop and the Black Experience at Howard University, James Madison University, and Loyola University. Dr. Thompson has received awards and funding from the Institute of Creativity, Arts, and Technology at Virginia Tech; Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations; African American History, Culture, and the Digital Humanities initiative at the University of Maryland College Park; the Digital Pedagogy Lab at Mary Washington University; and the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities at the University of Maryland College Park.
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Serena Simpson is an artist and a scholar. She writes fiction and nonfiction; her narratives are deeply influenced by place and memory. Serena’s current research centers on 20th century african-american women's literature that reflects the necessity of kindred relationships in black women’s conception and expression of identity. She is a graduate fellow in the Litowitz Creative Writing MFA+MA program at Northwestern University. She previously earned an MA in Writing and Publishing at DePaul University and completed a BA in English with a minor in Creative Writing at Spelman College. She was recently awarded the Leon Forrest Prose Award in nonfiction by the Guild Literary Complex in Chicago.
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Ebony Perro is a Professor of Practice at Tulane University where she teaches Freshman Writing and Honors Colloquium courses. At Tulane, Dr. Perro is a First-Year Faculty Fellow and aids students with their transition into university life. She received a PhD in Humanities with concentrations in Africana Women's Studies and English from Clark Atlanta University. Her research interests include Black rage, Black feminist literary criticism, youth activism, and 20th and 21st Black women’s literature. She is currently shifting her dissertation, Coming of (R)age: Constructing Counternarratives of Black Girlhood from the Angry Decade to the Age of Rage, into a book project.
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Conrad Pegues is Assistant Professor of Public Services Librarian in the Paul Meeks Library at The University of Tennessee Martin. He teaches bibliography classes across disciplines to support students, faculty and staff in their research needs.
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Sarah Mease received her B.A. in Literature and Language and Political Science from Virginia Tech in 2018. She is the current Digital Humanities Assistant within University Libraries at Virginia Tech, where she has outreach and research responsibilities to support the Digital Humanities and various library initiatives. Sarah additionally provides faculty and student support for the Digital Humanities in this role.
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Eliseo Jacob has a Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin with a background in Afro-Brazilian and Afro-Latin American literary and cultural productions. He currently is a lecturer of Brazilian literature and culture in the Department of World Languages and Cultures at Howard University. His recent publications contextualize literary and cultural representations of São Paulo’s urban periphery as part of a larger analysis regarding the relationship of the public sphere to marginalized communities in urban spaces. His current book project, tentatively titled Literary Counterpublics in the Americas: Race, Space and Citizenship in São Paulo and New York, is a comparative study between the Literatura Periférica movement in São Paulo and the Afro-Latino literary scene in New York. He asserts that these writers’ fictional narratives reflect larger social trends in which historically disempowered populations create epistemological spaces that open up new routes not only for creative expression, but also for political mobilization.
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Zanice Bond earned her Ph.D. in American Studies from the University of Kansas. She is currently an assistant professor of English at Tuskegee University, where she teaches first-year English composition, African American literature, Southern literature, and, most recently, Modern English Grammar and Linguistics. She is co-director of a two-year NEH grant Literary Legacies of Macon County and Tuskegee Institute: Zora Neale Hurston, Ralph W. Ellison, and Albert Murray.In 2017, she received a Fulbright-Hayes award to Chile and a Poetry Foundation Fellowship for the Furious Flower Center’s Legacy Seminar on Yusef Komunyakaa at James Madison University. Zanice’s research focuses on women in the civil rights movement. Her essay “‘Small Places Close to Home’: Gender, Class and Civil Rights Work--Mildred Bond Roxborough and the NAACP” was published in Tennessee Women: Their Lives, Their Times, Volume 2ed. Sarah L. Wilkerson Freeman and Beverly Greene Bond. GA: University of Georgia Press. She is revising her dissertation “Race, Place, and Family: Narratives of the Civil Rights Movement from Brownsville, Tennessee, and the Nation” for a book project.