Kenton Rambsy’s digital projects “use datasets to illuminate the significance of recurring trends and thematic shifts related to African American verbal art and literary history.” In this Digital Liberal Arts workshop of the inaugural series, “How’d They Do It,” Rambsy will provide a behind-the-scenes look at the digital project accompanying his most recent book, Geographies of African American Short Fiction. Workshop attendees will learn how he developed and used datasets to not only analyze the circulation of Black short stories but also to create visualizations to aid readers’ understandings about people and places within the stories.

Kenton Rambsy is an associate professor of African American literature at the Howard University. At Howard he is a core member in The Center of Applied Data Science and Analytics (CADSA) where he serves as the data storytelling and visualization specialist. His areas of research include twentieth and twenty-first century African American short fiction, Hip Hop, and book history. His ongoing Digital Humanities projects use datasets to illuminate the significance of recurring trends and thematic shifts as it relates Black writers and rappers. Kenton if the co-founder of The Literary Data Gallery, an online gallery that contains a variety of data driven visualization projects about Black creative works, creative artists, and literary critics.