Since the study/teaching of black literature is very often
dictated by what is current or what authors will attract students to a course, most
of what we know about black fiction is based on a very small sample of
texts. Our objective is to learn what this
larger body of mostly non-canonical texts can tell us that we don’t know and
how this knowledge alters current conceptions about black literature. Text
analysis has been slow to come to black writing, but is growing. What we hope
to achieve through this project is to provide the context for not only thinking
about but also documenting continuity and change, tradition and innovation
within African American fiction, by indexing novels according to selected
features, such as word choice, geographic location, character names, narrative
mode, for example. 
Based on our collection of some
2000 novels, most of which are neither widely read nor taught, we see the digital
medium as a
way to provide new levels
of
access, consolidate a large
amount of data and
invite new questions. What patterns exist among book
titles, word count and chapter structure
of
the novels? What are the terms and examples do authors use to describe race and racial
tension, and how does this
shift over time?
Which African American authors
are inclined to use unique words and phrases? How many and which
prominent historical figures make appearances in the novels? How much do the novelists represent variations of standard
and
African American
vernacular
English
in their works? What physical
environments
and
distinct regions are
described in the novels, and what common words and phrases
are
used to describe those places? How do stylistic preferences differ from writer to writer? How do these questions alter current organizing premises/theories about black novels?
On yesterday, I posted a list of “7 Ways that RapGenius Assists Digital African American Literary Scholarship.” Today, I decided to do
a follow up post to illustrate exactly what I meant by providing actual
examples on the RapGenius website. RapGenius’s crowd-sourced, multimedia platform helps users
to fuse social networking and online databases to create digital resources to study black writing.
Often times, there is a major emphasis placed on the
ideological differences between Zora Neale Hurston and Richard Wright. In some
respects, the tendency to highlight their differences overshadows their
similarities. Besides, perhaps their writings have more in common than accounts
of the differences imply. 
I am interested in online mediums, blogs in
particular, can be used as a space to think through ideas when preparing larger
publications, getting immediate feedback, and simply giving larger audiences
access to new ideas and information. In
terms of bridging the gap between “Digital Humanities” and “Black Studies,” developing
an online presence is crucial. Online websites concerning black culture serve
as points of entry for how wider audiences engage in scholarship about African
American life and history.
In terms of hip-hop culture, mixtapes have always been a
crucial part of how rappers and other musical artists produced and circulated
their works beyond official channels. Afrika Bambaataa and DJ Kool Herc, back
in the day, and in more recent times Nicki Minaj, Lil Wayne, and Frank Ocean utilized
mixtapes to get their works out to different publics. 
