De-colonizing Wikipedia: Editing Romantic Depictions of Colonial History and Literature

When? Friday, December 1st, 2017, 11:00am - 3:00pm

Where? Snell Library, Northeastern University, 360 Huntington Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts 02115.

Who? Open to the public as well as Northeastern University students, faculty, and staff.

Inspired by two recuperative digital archives at Northeastern, the Early Caribbean Digital Archive and the Women Writers Project, this event seeks to revise Wikipedia articles which extend romantic and orientalist representations of colonial history and literature. Our goal is to neutralize the heightened romantic and sentimental language used on Wikipedia to represent historical figures, paying special attention to representations of marginalized persons such as women, free and enslaved people of color, and indigenous persons. We will focus on Wikipedia articles on historical persons, travel narratives, natural histories, captivity narratives, and slave narratives. 

This hack-a-thon style session will focus on editing and updating Wikipedia pages in a group setting. You do not need any prior experience with Wikipedia to participate, just bring a laptop and a power supply. Attendees from outside Northeastern will need a photo ID to sign into the library—Just let the front desk staff know you are here for the edit-a-thon. Bring your suggestions for articles that need to be improved or authored, or help edit articles from the "Suggested Topics" list. Pizza will be served.

Project Manager, Early Caribbean Digital Archive

Northeastern University