iSchool Research Symposium: K.J. Rawson
Title: Resources for Resilience: Introducing the Digital Transgender Archive and the Homosaurus
Abstract: In this presentation, Dr. K.J. Rawson (he/him/his) will discuss his work founding and directing the Digital Transgender Archive (DTA) and serving as the chair of the editorial board of the Homosaurus: An International LGBTQ+ Linked Data Vocabulary. The DTA is an an open-access, primary source digital archive that Rawson created to address the barriers that researchers face when conducting historical research on transgender topics. This presentation will discuss those barriers and the new possibilities for historical discovery that digital archives like the DTA can open up for researchers. Dr. Rawson will also introduce the Homosaurus and the queer worldmaking possibilities of linked data vocabularies.
Speaker Bio: K.J. Rawson is an Associate Professor of English and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Northeastern University where is he also the co-director of the NULab for Texts, Maps, and Networks. He works at the intersections of the Digital Humanities and Rhetoric, LGBTQ+, and Feminist Studies. Focusing on archives as key sites of cultural power, he studies the rhetorical work of queer and transgender archival collections in brick-and-mortar and digital spaces. Rawson is founder and director of the Digital Transgender Archive, an award-winning collection of trans-related historical materials, and he chairs the editorial board of the Homosaurus, an LGBTQ+ linked data vocabulary.