Jamila Moore-Pewu

As a public and digital historian Dr. Moore Pewu is invested in sharing, complicating, and preserving African Diasporic spatial practices. She has a special interests in collaborating with artists/makers, scholars and local communities to reimagine the physical and ideological landscapes that shape their everyday lives. This includes directing several public humanities projects including: Reimagining Little Liberia: Restoration and Reunion. (2017). This exhibit brings scholars and artists together to tell the story of an endangered 19th century Black and Native American historic site. The exhibit is currently on view at the Housatonic Museum of Art in Bridgeport CT.  Other projects include the use of digital tools and technologies to visualize historic and contemporary spatial practices including: Mapping Arts OC.  (2018), and Art of the Matter. (currently in development), which preserves, and critically engages the spatial narratives and public art practices that emerged during the 2020 protest for Black Lives and racial justice.  Dr. Moore Pewu recently became the new Executive Director of The Museum of the City, a virtual museum established in 2006 about the world's cities - past, present, and future. The Museum of the City encourages citizens to become curators and engage both the design of cities, the theories that shape them and the people who live in them.  Dr. Moore Pewu also serves as co-PI on the Andrew Mellon funded Digital Ethnic Futures Consortium. which will establish a national network of regional comprehensive universities and minority serving institutions that develop undergraduate-focused digital humanities initiatives with an emphasis on ethnic studies and community engagement.

As a first-generation student herself, Dr. Moore Pewu is also invested in creating public humanities pathways for minoritized students and community organizations and has written about some of this work in the essays “Digital Reconnaissance: Re(Locating) Dark Spots on a Map,” and “Centering First-Generation Students in the Digital”. published in The Digital Black Atlantic  (2021) and People, Practice, Power: Digital Humanities Outside the Center. Moore Pewu also created and founded the Digital Ethnic Studies initiative at California State University Fullerton, CSUF Digital, and serves as a leader and founding member in the California State wide DH across the CSU Consortium. (DH@CSU).  

Recently, Dr. Moore Pewu joined the Department of American Studies at the University of Maryland. Her focus is on expanding her work and commitments to African Diasporic Digital and Public Humanities, as well as community-engaged research praxis and digital history. She has channeled her passion for Digital Public Humanities by serving as one of three topic editors for "Community Engaged Digital Humanities" in the Reviews in the Digital Humanities. Publication. Reviews in DH is a peer-reviewed journal and project that facilitates the scholarly evaluation and dissemination of digital humanities work.  Moore Pewu is also currently working on her first manuscript entitled Exit Strategies: Liberia, America and the Promise of Freedom, which  explores the genealogy of the place-name “Liberia” from the 19th century through the present.