Black Code Studies

CTL-E-6366 · Practice · other · 2017–present

VERIFIED evidence grade — build store (JSON graph)

Combined Graph record U-07552 · provenance: build store (JSON graph), record CTL-E-6366.

Black Code Studies is a scholarly framework for studying Black life where race and digital technology meet, named in a special issue of The Black Scholar in 2017. Guest editors Jessica Marie Johnson and Mark Anthony Neal titled the issue “Black Code” — volume 47, number 3 — and introduced it with “Wild Seed in the Machine.” In that introduction they describe the approach as “queer, femme, fugitive, and radical,” a praxis and methodology that refuses accounts of the digital that remove Black diasporic people from engagement with technology, modernity, or the future. The issue gathered contributors working on the margins of Black Studies, Afrofuturism, radical media, and the digital humanities, centering Black thought and cultural production across digital platforms, especially social media, where Black freedom struggles intersect with Black play.

The record

• Also known as: Black Code

Notes

TYPING CALL: the backlog proposed Topic, but the build graph's schema (v0.3.1) has no Topic type; Practice/other is the graph's home for concept and framework records (precedent: live Practice concept records) and is stated here for the founder's review at merge. GRADE BASIS: Verified under CTL-GOV-006 — the journal's own announcement plus two university pages agree on editors, journal, volume and year; a Duke AAAS news item (Sept. 5, 2017, seen in search) gives the precise citation 'v. 47, no. 3, Fall 2017.' SOURCE PIN: The Black Scholar citation rides the journal's category/archive page; pin the standalone announcement URL before publication. PHOTO: HELD (see media). CURATOR'S JUDGMENT (DRAFT): This is the packet's frame record — the field CTL's own Black Technology flagship works inside; its editors and inheritors fill the surrounding records. (Draft judgment, not fact.)

Relationships

• Jessica Marie Johnson — related to
  Jessica Marie Johnson co-edited, with Mark Anthony Neal, Black Code — the 2017 special issue of The Black Scholar (Vol. 47, No. 3) that named Black Code Studies — per Johns Hopkins University and the journal's own announcement.

Sources

• “The Black Scholar is proud to announce the release of ‘Black Code,’ by guest editors Jessica Marie Johnson and Mark Anthony Neal… Black Code Studies is queer, femme, fugitive, and radical; as praxis and methodology, it waxes insurgent… To receive… subscribe to Volume 47… our final issue of 2017.” Accessed 2026-10-29. (primary source · build store)
• “Excerpted from The Black Scholar, Vol. 47, Aug. 2017. By Jessica Marie Johnson and Mark Anthony Neal. Black Code Studies is queer, femme, fugitive, and radical… It refutes conceptions of the digital that remove black diasporic people from engagement with technology, modernity, or the future.” Accessed 2026-10-29. (build store)
• “co-editor with Dr. Mark Anthony Neal (Duke University) of Black Code: A Special Issue of the Black Scholar (2017).” Accessed 2026-10-29. (build store)

More practice records

• Black Digital Studies
• Black Hair Care
• Black language practice in Chicago (African American Language)
• Black police work in Chicago (Renault Robinson)
• Black Power Movement
• Black retailers' supply-chain dependency

Browse the full directory: all entity records

Record CTL-E-6366 · Combined Graph record U-07552 · CultureTechLens Knowledge Graph · 3 sources · 1 mapped relationship.
Directory: all entity records · the knowledge graph

Researched and maintained by the CultureTechLens research program · CultureTechLens Combined Graph, Release 2026-11-04. Corrections are public: the corrections log.

Cite this record

Citation guidance for teachers, journalists, and funders: How to Cite Us.

From the Archive

The archive in pictures

The people, places, and institutions this work documents. Photographs from the CultureTechLens research record — rights-cleared, credited, and cited like everything else here.