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Literary scholar Kenton Rambsy, associate professor of English at Howard University, will present “Black Data Stories Matter” as part of the Tay Gavin Erikson Lecture Series, at 10 a.m. Tuesday, March 31, in New Africa House Room 21.

A data storytelling specialist with Howard’s Center for Applied Data Science and Analytics, Rambsy’s work bridges African American literature and data science. Using data analysis and visualization to examine patterns across Black literature and Black studies broadly, he leads the Black Data Lab, where students and collaborators build datasets and create public visualizations about African American literary history.

Many African American storytellers have work that contains a multitude of reference points, which scholars have long examined through close reading and historical interpretation, and yet new questions emerge upon examination of the numerical patterns, circulation histories, and cultural data that shape how Black writers are read, taught, and remembered. In his presentation, Rambsy will explain how data storytelling can expand the study of Black writers and other topics across Black studies.

Rambsy is the author of the 2022 book, “The Geographies of African American Short Stories,” and his forthcoming book “One Black Writer at a Time,” co-authored with his brother Howard Rambsy II, will be published by Bloomsbury in September.

More information about the presentation, as well as a link to register to attend, can be found on the Center for Research on Families website.