Letter from the Guest Editors

Alanna Prince; Cassie Tanks; Ángel David Nieves

Alanna Prince
Cassie Tanks
Ángel David Nieves

Keywords: special issue, guest editors, digital humanities, social justice

Abstract

We the guest editors welcome readers to the special issue of VRA Bulletin, “The Root of Things: Grounding the Digital Humanities in an Increasingly Groundless World.” In this issue, we seek to think about what the digital humanities mean in a world that is becoming increasingly digital while also less humane. As we noted in the call for proposals, “This issue seeks to tackle how we, as digital humanists, archivists, librarians, and otherwise find solid ground to work from as we face an onslaught of precarity exacerbated by systemic injustice.”

Author Biographies

Alanna Prince

Alanna Prince is a scholar of literature, Black culture, feminism, and the digital humanities. She has earned degrees from Bates College and Northeastern University. She was recently awarded her Ph.D. in September of 2024 for her dissertation Luminous Black: On Making Time, the World, and the Self in Black Women’s Poetry. She has worked with the National Parks Service, GBH, and The Early Caribbean Digital Archive. You can learn more about her scholarship and pedagogy at alannaprince.com.

Cassie Tanks

Cassie Tanks is an archivist, public humanist, aspiring historian, digital humanist, and first-generation student originally from San Diego, California. She is pursuing a Ph.D. in World History at Northeastern University, has an M.S.L.S. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and a Bachelor’s in History from San Diego State University after earning an Associate of Arts at San Diego Mesa Community College. Tanks’ work focuses on the borderlands of North America and southern Africa, imperialism and decolonization, and U.S. foreign policy through spatial, community archival, and transnational liberation lens.

Ángel David Nieves

Ángel David Nieves was a Professor of Africana Studies, History, and Digital Humanities and Director of Public Humanities in the College of Social Sciences and Humanities at Northeastern University. Nieves authored An Architecture of Education: African American Women Design the New South (2018/2020) and co-edited ‘We Shall Independent Be:’ African American Place Making and the Struggle to Claim Space in the U.S. (with Alexander, 2008). Nieves received his Ph.D. from Cornell University in the History of Urban Development and Africana Studies, an M.A. in Socio-Cultural Anthropology and Women’s Studies from Binghamton University (SUNY), and a professional Bachelor of Architecture degree from Syracuse University.