CDHI Visiting Speaker Series: Catherine Knight Steele on Digital Black Feminism

CDHI and the Black Research Network are pleased to host Dr. Catherine Knight Steele as the second speaker in our Winter 2022 Visiting Speaker Series. Dr. Knight Steele is an Assistant Professor of Communication at the University of Maryland-College Park and the Director of the Black Communication and Technology Lab.

Dr. Knight Steele’s talk is titled “Digital Black Feminism: Toward a Black Feminist Technoculture.”

Abstract: Black women are at the forefront of some of this century’s most important discussions about technology: trolling, online harassment, algorithmic bias, and influencer culture. But Black women’s relationship with technology began long before the advent of Twitter or Instagram. To truly “listen to Black women,” we turn our gaze to the history of Black feminist technoculture in the U.S. to decenter white supremacy and patriarchy in the future of technology. In this talk, Catherine Knight Steele places Black women at the center of a discussion about technology, using the virtual beauty shop as a metaphor and mechanism to interrogate a Black feminist technoculture wherein we no longer treat Black women’s use and manipulation of digital technologies as deviant, deficient, or an aberration. Steele considers how Black women’s specific institutional and social oppression—which began long before the advent of digital technology—has resulted in their continued strength with communication technology.

The event will be held virtually via zoom. Please register at this link.

This event is co-sponsored by the Black Research Network (BRN). To learn more about the BRN, visit this link.