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 […]
[By Kenton Rambsy] The Black Book Interactive Project (BBIP) focuses on African American novels published from the mid-19th through the early 20th century novels, creating a tool that allows a comparison of thematic and stylistic elements, ideas and language use. Relying on text-mining software, mapping and geo-tagging, we can make striking observations about a large number of texts. Scholars, researchers and students will be able […]
[By Kenton Rambsy] ***Help Me Annotate on RapGenius. Read Post to find out how*** In “Public Service Announcement” Jay-Z raps, “Check out my hat yo, peep the way I wear it/Check out my swag’ yo, I walk like a ballplayer.” Jay-Z’s reference to “Swag” has deeper cultural roots for African Americans. Even though the word “swag” has been made wildly popular by rappers in recent […]
[By Kenton Rambsy] 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. 1) RapGenius […]
[By Kenton Rambsy] I said it once and I’ll say it again: Rap Genius is not just for Rap fans. In my post, Rap Genius and Black Literature, I wrote about how the website “helps clarify the importance of language usage, historical context, and thematic content in poems, speeches, essays, and novels.” Rap Genius’s growing online collection of black writers ranging from Langston Hughes to […]
[By Kenton Rambsy] Rap Genius is not just for rap fans. The website, made popular for its explanations of rap music, has now ventured into providing detailed explanations for literary texts. Using the same crowd-sourced annotation platform, Rap Genius allows for its users to break down literary texts and help clarify the importance of language usage, historical context, and thematic content in poems, speeches, essays, […]
[By Kenton Rambsy] 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 recently decided to focus on what the writers had in common specifically concentrating on how they […]