Graduate Assistant
The Pennsylvania State University
Biographical Sketch: Justin Smith is a dual degree PhD candidate in English and African American Studies and an inaugural Scholar with the Center for Black Digital Research at the Pennsylvania State University. His dissertation focuses on early 20th-century African American literature and how political identity and solidarity manifest themselves in literary texts (broadly conceived) with an emphasis on critical race theory as well as on liberation within the Black radical tradition. In addition, he has helped lead in digital crowdsourcing efforts to transcribe the written records of Black women as part of the annual Douglass Day transcribe-a-thon event in collaboration with various organizations and platforms including the Library of Congress and Zooniverse. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Black Scholar, Feminist Formations, The Modernist Review, The Space Between Journal, and Scribes.