The application of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to issues in history is among the most exciting developments in both digital and spatial humanities. Describing a wide variety of applications, the essays in this volume highlight the methodological and substantive implications of a spatial approach to history. They illustrate how the use of GIS is changing our understanding of the geographies of the past and has become the basis for new ways to study history. Contributors focus on current developments in the use of historical sources and explore the insights gained by applying GIS to develop historiography. Toward Spatial Humanities is a compelling demonstration of how GIS can contribute to our historical understanding.
“Tap[s] the power of new geospatial technologies . . . explore[s] the intersection of geography, religion, politics, and identity in Irish history.”—International Social Science Review Ireland’s landscape is marked by fault lines of religious, ethnic, and political identity that have shaped its troubled history. Troubled Geographies maps this history by detailing the patterns of change in Ireland from 16th century attempts to “plant” areas of Ireland with loyal English Protestants to defend against threats posed by indigenous Catholics, through the violence of the latter part of the 20th century and the rise of the “Celtic Tiger.” The book is concerned with how a geography laid down in the 16th and 17th centuries led to an amalgam based on religious belief, ethnic/national identity, and political conviction that continues to shape the geographies of modern Ireland. Troubled Geographies shows how changes in religious affiliation, identity, and territoriality have impacted Irish society during this period. It explores the response of society in general and religion in particular to major cultural shocks such as the Famine and to long term processes such as urbanization. “Makes a strong case for a greater consideration of spatial information in historical analysis―a message that is obviously appealing for geographers.”—Journal of Interdisciplinary History “A book like this is useful as a reminder of the struggles and the sacrifices of generations of unrest and conflict, albeit that, on a global scale, the Irish troubles are just one of a myriad of disputes, each with their own history and localized geography.”—Journal of Historical Geography
Deep maps are finely detailed, multimedia depictions of a place and the people, buildings, objects, flora, and fauna that exist within it and which are inseparable from the activities of everyday life. These depictions may encompass the beliefs, desires, hopes, and fears of residents and help show what ties one place to another. A deep map is a way to engage evidence within its spatio-temporal context and to provide a platform for a spatially-embedded argument. The essays in this book investigate deep mapping and the spatial narratives that stem from it. The authors come from a variety of disciplines: history, religious studies, geography and geographic information science, and computer science. Each applies the concepts of space, time, and place to problems central to an understanding of society and culture, employing deep maps to reveal the confluence of actions and evidence and to trace paths of intellectual exploration by making use of a new creative space that is visual, structurally open, multi-media, and multi-layered.
Essays exploring the methodologies used by film scholars to develop a spatial history of the moving image. Leading scholars in the interdisciplinary field of geo-spatial visual studies examine the social experience of cinema and the different ways in which film production developed as a commercial enterprise, as a leisure activity, and as modes of expression and communication. Their research charts new pathways in mapping the relationship between film production and local film practices, theatrical exhibition circuits and cinema going, creating new forms of spatial anthropology. Topics include cinematic practices in rural and urban communities, development of cinema by amateur filmmakers, and use of GIS in mapping the spatial development of film production and cinema going as social practices. “Introduces some of the concrete ways practical mapping and GIS technologies help elaborate historical film projects. . . . The scope of many of these projects is breathtaking in scale. . . . Others embrace ethnographic methods that tell poignant individual stories. Still others deftly merge qualitative and quantitative approaches. . . . As a whole, the volume brings together disparate fields of study in interesting ways.” —James Craine, California State University, Northridge “This collection breaks new ground for cinema history. Hallam and Roberts have gathered some of the foremost scholars who are mapping spatial histories of the moving image and the geographies of film production, distribution and consumption. Introducing new interdisciplinary methods and asking new questions, Locating the Moving Image takes film studies into new territory, beyond the boundaries of the text and its interpretation, towards an understanding of the relationship between culture, spatiality and place.” —Richard Maltby, Matthew Flinders Distinguished Professor of Screen Studies, Flinders University
This book describes how powerful computing technology, emerging big and open data sources, and theoretical perspectives on spatial synthesis have revolutionized the way in which we investigate social sciences and humanities. It summarizes the principles and applications of human-centered computing and spatial social science and humanities research, thereby providing fundamental information that will help shape future research. The book illustrates how big spatiotemporal socioeconomic data facilitate the modelling of individuals’ economic behavior in space and time and how the outcomes of such models can reveal information about economic trends across spatial scales. It describes how spatial social science and humanities research has shifted from a data-scarce to a data-rich environment. The chapters also describe how a powerful analytical framework for identifying space-time research gaps and frontiers is fundamental to comparative study of spatiotemporal phenomena, and how research topics have evolved from structure and function to dynamic and predictive. As such this book provides an interesting read for researchers, students and all those interested in computational and spatial social sciences and humanities.
Across the disciplines, the study of space has undergone a profound and sustained transformation. Space, place, mapping, and geographical imaginations have become commonplace topics in a variety of analytical fields in part because globalization has accentuated the significance of location. While this transformation has led to a renaissance in human geography, it also has manifested itself in the humanities and other social sciences. The purpose of this book is not to announce that space is significant, which by now is well known, but to explore how space is analyzed by a variety of disciplines, to compare and contrast these approaches, identify commonalities, and explore how and why differences appear. The volume includes works by 13 scholars from a variety of geographical regions and disciplines. The chapters combine up-to-date literature reviews concerning the role of space in each discipline and several offer original empirical analyses. Some chapters are concerned with Geography while others explore the role of space in contemporary Anthropology, Sociology, Religion, Political Science, Film, and Cultural Studies. The introduction surveys the development of the spatial turn across the fields under consideration. Despite frequent reference to the spatial turn, this is the first volume to explicitly address how theory and practice concerning space, is used in a variety of fields from diverse conceptual perspectives. This book will appeal to everyone conducting conceptual and theoretical research on space, not simply in Geography, but in related fields as well.
All too often, defining a discipline becomes more an exercise of exclusion than inclusion. Disrupting the Digital Humanities seeks to rethink how we map disciplinary terrain by directly confronting the gatekeeping impulse of many other so-called field-defining collections. What is most beautiful about the work of the Digital Humanities is exactly the fact that it can't be tidily anthologized. In fact, the desire to neatly define the Digital Humanities (to filter the DH-y from the DH) is a way of excluding the radically diverse work that actually constitutes the field. This collection, then, works to push and prod at the edges of the Digital Humanities - to open the Digital Humanities rather than close it down. Ultimately, it's exactly the fringes, the outliers, that make the Digital Humanities both lovely and rigorous. This collection does not constitute yet another reservoir for the new Digital Humanities canon. Rather, our aim is less about assembling content as it is about creating new conversations. Building a truly communal space for the digital humanities requires that we all approach that space with a commitment to: 1) creating open and non-hierarchical dialogues; 2) championing non-traditional work that might not otherwise be recognized through conventional scholarly channels; 3) amplifying marginalized voices; 4) advocating for students and learners; and 5) sharing generously to support the work of our peers. TABLE OF CONTENTS // Cathy N. Davidson, "Preface: Difference is Our Operating System" Dorothy Kim and Jesse Stommel, "Disrupting the Digital Humanities: An Introduction" I. Etymology Adeline Koh, "A Letter to the Humanities: DH Will Not Save You" Audrey Watters, "The Myth and the Millennialism of 'Disruptive Innovation'" Meg Worley, "The Rhetoric of Disruption: What are We Doing Here?" Jesse Stommel, "Public Digital Humanities" II. Identity Jonathan Hsy and Rick Godden, "Universal Design and Its Discontents" Angel Nieves, "DH as 'Disruptive Innovation' for Restorative Social Justice: Virtual Heritage and 3D Reconstructions of South Africa's Township Histories" Annemarie Perez, "Lowriding through the Digital Humanities" III. Jeremiad Mongrel Coalition Against Gringpo, "Gold Star for You," "Mongrel Dream Library" Michelle Moravec, "Exceptionalism in Digital Humanities: Community, Collaboration, and Consensus" Matt Thomas, "The Trouble with ProfHacker" Sean Michael Morris, "Digital Humanities and the Erosion of Inquiry" IV. Labor Moya Bailey, "#transform(ing)DH Writing and Research: An Autoethonography of Digital Humanities and Feminist Ethics" Kathi Inman Berens and Laura Sanders, "DH and Adjuncts: Putting the Human Back into the Humanities" Liana Silva Ford, "Not Seen, Not Heard" Spencer D. C. Keralis, "Disrupting Labor in Digital Humanities; or, The Classroom Is Not Your Crowd" V. Networks Maha Bali, "The Unbearable Whiteness of the Digital" Eunsong Kim, "The Politics of Visibility" Bonnie Stewart, "Academic Influence: The Sea of Change" VI. Play Edmond Y Chang, "Playing as Making" Kat Lecky, "Humanizing the Interface" Robin Wharton, "Bend Until It Breaks: Digital Humanities and Resistance" VII. Structure Chris Friend, "Outsiders, All: Connecting the Pasts and Futures of Digital Humanities and Composition" Lee Skallerup-Bessette, "W(h)ither DH? New Tensions, Directions, and Evolutions in the Digital Humanities" Chris Bourg, "The Library is Never Neutral" Fiona Barnett, "After the Digital Humanities, or, a Postscript" Conclusion Dorothy Kim, "#DecolonizeDH or A Practical Guide to Making DH Less White"
This inspirative and hopeful collection demonstrates that the arts and humanities are entering a renaissance that stands to change the direction of our communities. Community leaders, artists, educators, scholars, and professionals from many fields show how they are creating responsible transformations through partnership in the arts and humanities. The diverse perspectives that come together in this book teach us how to perceive our lives and our disciplines through a broader context. The contributions exemplify how individuals, groups, and organizations use artistic and humanistic principles to explore new structures and novel ways of interacting to reimagine society. They refresh and reinterpret the ways in which we have traditionally assigned space and value to the arts and humanities.
The contemporary fields of the study of culture, the humanities and the social sciences are unfolding in a dynamic constellation of cultural turns. This book provides a comprehensive overview of these theoretically and methodologically groundbreaking reorientations. It discusses the value of the new focuses and their analytical categories for the work of a wide range of disciplines. In addition to chapters on the interpretive, performative, reflexive, postcolonial, translational, spatial and iconic turns, it discusses emerging directions of research. Drawing on a wealth of international research, this book maps central topics and approaches in the study of culture and thus provides systematic impetus for changed disciplinary and transdisciplinary research in the humanities and beyond – e.g., in the fields of sociology, economics and the study of religion. This work is the English translation by Adam Blauhut of an influential German book that has now been completely revised. It is a stimulating example of a cross-cultural translation between different theoretical cultures and also the first critical synthesis of cultural turns in the English-speaking world.
