African American Autobiography – A Digital Database

#Thursday Colloquium by Dustin Breitenwischer, University of Hamburg

The “Digital Database: African American Autobiography” is the first digital collection of paratextual metadata of African American autobiographies. The database uses various taxonomies and tagging models to record and interconnect paratextual elements such as covers, titles, and blurbs. The autobiography is considered the most important genre in African American literary history, and while their intertextual relationships are well-researched, the paratextual communication between their books (as media with varying editions) has received little attention. These paratextual elements have historically been sites of internal struggles, aesthetic resistance, systemic oppression, and artistic devaluation. The digital database aims to enable users to explore the often precarious and marginalized histories of publication, circulation, and reception in a resource-efficient manner.

Dustin Breitenwischer is Associate Professor for American Studies at the University of Hamburg and currently tandem partner of visual artist Julia Phillips.

^{This event is addressed to fellows and their tandem partners.}

^{Recommended publications:}

Dustin Breitenwischer, Reproducing Frederick Douglass, in: Activist Writing: History, Politics, Rhetoric. Ed. Pierre-Héli Monot, David Bebnowski, Sakina Shakil Gröppmaier. Zürich: intercom Verlag, 2024. 83–96

Literatures, Communities, Worlds: Competing Notions of the Global. Ed. Dustin Breitenwischer et al. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2024