automating black joy -a disco co(lab)
with support from the Just Tech Fellowship, as part of the Social Science Research Council
est. 2025
Automating Black Joy is a project that points a critical lens toward the future of AI. We examine automation and AI through the lens of Black feminist inquiry and toward the goal of liberation and joy. A goal of the project is the development of a multi-generational research team from high school students through University faculty to consider the relationship between Black joy and automation via communication scholarship. By researching the implications of AI in education, politics, media, and the environment, our collaborators will collectively imagine possibilities for liberation. Together, we will build, write, and create using microgrants, skills workshops, and research teams over the next academic year. This collaboration will be led by Dr. Catherine Knight Steele, Director of the BCaT lab and an Associate Professor of Communication at the University of Maryland and a 2024-26 Just Tech Fellow.
What is THE aUTOMATING BLACK JOY PROJECT ABOUT?
Automating Black Joy is an interdisciplinary project that brings a critical Black Feminist lens to the future of artificial intelligence and automation. Centered on liberation and joy, the initiative explores how emerging technologies shape and can be reshaped by Black life, creativity, and possibility. Currently, Automating Black Joy is running a collaborative microgrant project that builds a multi-generational research community, connecting undergraduate and graduate scholars and faculty. Through communication scholarship, participants collaboratively examine the relationship between Black joy and automation across key areas, including education, politics, media, and the environment.
Rather than simply analyzing AI, Automating Black Joy is inviting you and our collaborators to imagine alternative futures. Through microgrants, hands-on workshops, and collaborative research teams, contributors will produce scholarship, digital projects, and creative works over the academic year. Led by Dr. Catherine Knight Steele, Director of the BCaT Lab, the collaborative project features workshops around several different topics, including:, Algorithmic Reparation, A Docu-Poetic Storytelling, Archival Practices,Collective Cultural Memory, Audio Mixing, Podcasting, and Narrative Production, Ethical Data Management, and Critical Geographies/Storymaps.
Together, Automating Black Joy cultivates a collaborative space for researching, building, and imagining technological futures grounded in justice, autonomy, and collective flourishing
Recognizing the growing ubiquity of automation, machine learning, algorithms, and artificial intelligence in our systems of education, politics, and society, Automating Black Joy takes a new approach to these conversations by insisting that Black youth, culture, and history can inform our future. This project conceives joy as a resistance strategy toward justice and liberation. Automating Black Joy:
Creates cohorts of students and faculty to work collaboratively on digital projects, social media research, educational tools, and public scholarship
Provides participants with training on research methods, including interviewing, focus groups, and digital ethnography, as well as digital tools such as sound production, digital mapping, and coding in Fall 2025
Help teams produce and publish their work online in multiple format
Spring 2026 -
Abj Workshop Series & spEAKER SERIES
During the Spring 2026 academic semester, the BCaT Lab had the honor of hosting several different workshops related to the Automating Black Joy project.
This series centered a range of topics and technologies, including ethical data management, critical geographies/storymaps, audiomixing/podcasting, documentary storytelling, and more.
This series is still ongoing!
On the right, you will see a flyer for the current or upcoming ABJ workshop(s)!
click below to see our archive of materials!
Previous Series:
bcat bookclub Spring 2025: Automating Black Joy
The Automating Black Joy BCaT Bookclub ran from March 12th, 2025 - May 7th, 2025. We engaged with speculative fiction, critical design, readings, and more in pointing a critical lens toward the future of AI. By reading about the implications of AI in education, politics, media, and the environment, we will begin to collectively imagine possibilities for liberation.