But I just did digital pedagogy in the humanities!

It occurs to me that I just practiced some Digital Pedagogy in the Humanities today, y’all!

In African American Lit, we started discussing the first African American novel, Clotel, or The President’s Daughter, by William Wells Brown. I use an online critical edition of the novel created by Christopher Mulvey for this text, because it allows us to compare and contextualize the four versions of the novel published in the 19th century.

This is really useful for teaching rhetorical analysis; it gets the students to see firsthand how authors write in different ways for different purposes and address audiences differently depending on a variety of interests. We do a whole assignment based on this technology that didn’t even exist when I first read this novel.

Then, in my Global Black Lit class, I realized we really need to use the Harvard Africa Map. Here it is:

This is a great tool. I first used it back when I was teaching a survey course on African Cultures way back when at a certain school that rhymes with End Why You. Conveying the complexity and diversity within African nations, and the heterogeneity of the continent’s cultures, is really important. It illustrates what Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is talking about in The Danger of A Single Story (and yes, I know there are other perspectives).

Next up: I need to find a reason to use this ↓ in class. Oh, I will. Trust.