Comics as Data North America (CaDNA)
Since 2018 Comics as Data: North America (CaDNA) has been an ongoing project utilizing Michigan State University Library (MSUL) Comic Art Collection metadata. MSUL is home to the world’s largest publicly accessible comic book collection and this project has developed the catalog metadata as a corpus to explore the production, content, and creative communities linked to comics in North America. As a founder member of the project team, Dr. Chambliss continues to developed data visualization inspired by the CaDNA dataset. As we continue to expand on this work in the DHLC, we seek to align our visualization work with historical and cultural conversations to better understand changes in community and identity in North America.
Technoculture, Data, and Identity
Inspired by the intersections of Black Digital Humanities and Critical Afrofuturism framework, Dr. Julian Chambliss’s Mapping Black Imaginaries and Geographies (MAPPING BIG) projects within the DHLC actively seek to explore the intersection between technology, culture, and race.
Dr. Julian Chambliss spoke with Jon Gosier about his memoir, Code Switch: A Memoir, in March 2023. Described as a personal odyssey through his experience with technology in the United States and Africa, their conversation highlights the ways narrative around technology and the African Diaspora have evolved since the turn of the century.