Make the World: Digital Humanities, Identity, and New Civic Narratives

Abstract

This presentation was part of the Reframing History: Public Digital Humanities and the Making of New Civic Narratives Panel at the conference. Panel description: Showcasing generative digital scholarship and public humanities practice, this panel will explore efforts to radically reframe local and regional histories of Central Florida and consider the implications for civic discourse on critical issues (race relations, economic development, historic preservation, gentrification, etc.) linking past, present, and future. Traditional narratives of this region have focused almost exclusively on Great Men (typically wealthy white investor-philanthropists) and the Great Homes, Businesses, and Cultural Institutions they established. Today, community leaders are demanding more inclusive narratives. In this panel, presenters discuss the digital pedagogy and public humanities practices they have employed to recover the Black Social Worlds (Chambliss), cultural traditions (Baker), patronage networks (French), and preservation strategies (McPherson) of economically and politically marginalized African American communities. In developing a public digital humanities practice that embraces on and offline projects, they seek to add depth, context, and clarity to a regional history that extends, illuminates, and at times disrupts the broader narrative of southern history. From dynamic classroom experiences that empower students to community engagement through walking tours, ���history harvests,��� podcasts and museum exhibits they argue, bringing the digital to the public has multiple benefits to expand our vision of the black experience.