Author: moyabailey

Queer, Black Geeks, Unite!

I got to do an awesome interview with long time community friend and newly minted QWOC Wire Writer Tiffany Y. Ates about my involvement with Shawty Got Skillz!

Digital humanities dissident, Moya Bailey, has sculpted a yellow brick road in cyberspace for women of color. This summer she will travel to Detroit, along with her collective, Shawty Got Skills, to conduct a three-hour workshop at the 14th annual Allied Media Conference. As the ‘founder and co-conspirator’ of Quirky Black Girls, blogger for the Crunk Feminist Collective, and graduate student, it’s amazing she even had time to squeeze us in for an interview (virtual, of course). I asked Moya to share more about her skill share, their objectives, and her cosmic digital endeavors.

Read more here!

Geeked!

Thoughts on THATCamp CHNM!

I had the good fortune to attend THATCamp CHNM last week and it was awesome!!!

After a day long English language nerd field trip, I arrived at THATCamp CHNM. The workshops offered were wonderful and I’m super confident about my Omeka and newly acquired Viewshare skills. I particularly enjoyed the mobile apps workshop which made something seemingly beyond my scope of learning, all the more accessible. Thanks Mike!

I met some of the #transformdh folks in person for the first time and had the opportunity to geek out about blogging pedagogy with Mark Sample and others. We started  a dichotomy for when/how to use class blogs that I hope folks will try to finish. It was inside that session that I realized what I like most about THATCamp is a call to create something in the moment and to fix a problem within our allotted hour and a half.

I really wanted that for the future of digital publishing session. There’s so much amazing work that people are creating that doesn’t “count” towards tenure and promotion in the current system. The question was posed, if we love doing the work does it matter if it doesn’t count? It seems people have different answers at different stages of their academic careers with tenured professors much more likely to take risks while grad students and junior faculty ask is this ok? The session left me wondering how a collective DH call to university administrators and departments could help shift current standards. I still wonder why some DH is visible as such and others is not.  So much of what I see in af-am and other oppressed peoples studies tries to make work accessible/accountable to communities outside the academy which more often than not includes a digital component. How can THATCamps attract a more diverse academic audience from a wide range of humanities disciplinary backgrounds?

I’m super excited about the practice of THATCamps being connected to other conferences and I wonder if that might remain a strategy for engaging new communities of scholars. I’m already dreaming up a session proposal for my next THATCamp experience 🙂

All the Digital Humanists Are White, All the Nerds Are Men, but Some of Us Are Brave

square peg unable to fit in a round hole
image by rosipaw/CC licensed.

My  “conversation” in the inaugural Journal of Digital Humanities is live! Special thanks to Natalia Cecire for the invitation!

Following a fascinating talk by Ed Finn on the changing role and source of literary criticism in a digital age, Natalia Cecire queried the implicit neutrality of a term like “nerd.” Melissa Harris-Perry’s reclamation aside, the racialized and gendered aspects of nerddom, and by extension the digital humanities, offer opportunities for a more explicit engagement with positionalities that lead “white men to feel embattled.” How do those outside the categories white and male navigate this burgeoning disciplinary terrain?

More here!

Relax, Relate, Release!

Image of the pacific coast at sunset

I take advice from my favorite 80’s/90’s TV show, A Different World. Whitley was having all these problems and her therapist told her to relax, relate, and release (2 Min mark). I’ve taken it to heart!

Relax– I’ve been running on E because it’s the end of the semester and I don’t know how/if I can pay my bills next year. I’ve gotten my reoccurring eye twitch back and tingly numbness in my arm. Stress. So in an effort to alleviate these tensions I’m going with what I know helps me relax. Good food, hugs, sunshine, and music. All day, all the time (you are welcome to contribute any and all of these)!

Relate– I’m not the only one going through it in this economy and I definitely haven’t gotten the worst of it. With the slight bit of class and educational privilege I have, I know some couches I can crash on, some free meals I can eat. I commiserate with friends about the unideal nature of things and honestly it’s comforting to remember that you are not alone.

Release– I’m letting go of my guilt. I’m letting go of feeling like I am a failure because I failed. I try to live by the four agreements so I’ve done my best. If I still fail, I know it’s not because I didn’t give it my all. And sometimes, failure happens.

I’m gonna be ok. This too shall pass. And in the mean time, I’ll remember to relax, relate, release!

DH for the People!

Women and genderqueer people of color editing digital stories at the Allied Media Conference Shawty Got Skillz 2011 Session.

My session idea for THATCampSE:

I’m really excited about the types of DH projects university folks are creating. I’m also curious about discussing more applied DH projects that meet community needs and serve  people beyond university walls. Universities have notoriously contentious community relations and it seems like more intentional collaborative outreach could help. If communities were involved in DH, what kind of projects would be prioritized? I’d like to brainstorm ways to create community centered projects that not only advance academic goals, but help make our world a better place. What kind of SouthEast specific community based project can be dreamed up? All power to the people! icon smile DH for the People!

White Coats, White Doctors: The Flexner Report’s Continued Impact on Medical Student Education

Inset image of a freshman medical student looking like a slave while the sophomore looks refined.

 

In the afternoon of March 3, I’ll be presenting a bit of my dissertation research at the Southern Association for the History of Medicine and Science Conference in the Basswood Room of the Emory Conference Center at 2:45 pm. Come through!

I’ll tell you about this picture!

Black Thought 2.0 Conference April 6-7 @Duke

Screen Shot of Black Thought 2.0 Conference website

 

I’m super geeked to be presenting at the Duke University Black Thought 2.0 Conference April 7 at 1: 30 pm. I’ll be repping the Crunk Feminist Collective and paneling with the wonder twin, Alexis Pauline Gumbs. They also have me listed as a Ph.D. which is simultaneously motivating and terrifying.

Conference organizers will be live streaming and tweeting the event as well.