Introduction: American Quarterly in the Digital Sphere

[...]the initial manifestation of the "Digital Projects Review" struck many scholars as being out of step with the vibrant and innovative American studies approaches to digital humanities that have emerged over the past two decades.1 This frustration found an outlet on social media, and on the DH Caucus email list, which eventually led the six of us to propose this special issue, "Toward a Critically Engaged Digital Practice: American Studies and the Digital Humanities." In "Black Matters of Value: Archiving James Baldwin's House as a Virtual Writer's Museum," Magdalena Zaborowska proffers an introspective discussion sparked by the partial demolition of his last home, "Chez Baldwin" in St. Paul-de-Vence, France, and her project to preserve it as a virtual museum, musing on our collective failure to preserve the physical archive of Baldwin's life even as his biography and writings emphatically demonstrate "the need to preserve both the intangible and tangible traces of black lives by any means available." In "Engaging Community and Spatial Humanities for Postindustrial Heritage: The Keweenaw Time Traveler," Sarah Fayen Scarlett, Don Lafreniere, Daniel J. Trepal, John D. M. Arnold, and Robert Pastel explore "an interactive, online historical atlas" that "combines deep mapping with public history to create a mutually beneficial online tool for researchers and community stakeholders alike." [...]the fourth section is a digital project review by Jason Heppler of two projects that represent the potential of interactive mapping to render accessible scholarly arguments as well as data that might lead to new research, "Renewing Inequality: Family Displacements through Urban Renewal" and "Mapping Inequality: Redlining in New Deal America."