Brian, I think your question gets at the reasons why one would build a visualization tool, or any other kind of tool for that matter: for discovery of new knowledge, i.e. seeing patterns that wouldn’t have been visible otherwise? or for developing evidence for an existing idea? Research or writing? Or teaching? (Would any of this be useful to students, is another question I’ve been asking myself. Since we’ve got the makings of a bunch of pedagogy-oriented sessions, it may end up being a recurring theme.)

And social network visualization! I don’t know a whole lot about social network analysis, but I think it would be a terrific way to explore the connectedness of any group of people — historical figures or writers or characters in Shakespeare plays or even the “invisible college” of scholars. If anyone who’s worked on social networks wants to talk about that, I’d love to be in on the conversation.

How bout tying this to a historical question: what are the Detroits and New Orleans of history? What are the places loaded with symbolism, being somewhat forgotten, just out of the circle of awareness of mass culture?

How to use social networks among writers to show the invisible boundary which different social networks don’t cross? Average the map of colonial administrators’ diaries for Bombay, and then find the exceptions who travel beyond the pale…

1. One of the valuable things about mapping fiction is that it helps us get a better sense of the context that the characters move within. For example, Hemingway’s novels are often very precise about where his characters are in Paris, Spain, or wherever. This makes sense given that Hemingway was a person who cared very much about being in the right places (and drinking the right things) at the right times. When he tells us where his characters are, then, we have the opportunity to place them on a map. But this placement should stimulate us to think about what is surrounding them at a particular moment. What shops/buildings are in the area? If there are shops, who are the patrons and what goods are being sold? Which of Hemingway’s real contemporaries might have lived in the area that he is talking about? How does the fictional story overlay with his real one? One can go on. If we approach mapping the literary text in this way, then mapping isn’t actually the end itself. Rather, it opens the way to new research questions. We gain a richer sense of the text and perhaps–especially in the case of Hemingway–how this integrates with the author’s own life.

2. Along with mapping a particular text, I think that it can be equally useful to map a particular place with a multitude of texts. Take, for example, the NYT “Literary Map of Manhattan” (www.nytimes.com/packages/html/books/20050605_BOOKMAP_GRAPHIC/). If we think about everything imaginary that inhabits a real physical space, we might start to see new connections between works that are otherwise unconnected. For example, imagine a film atlas that shows scenes from every film made in LA’s Griffith Park. What is the BatCave butting up against?

In both of these situations, what I see as being most important is the fact that the map is being used to make an argument. While mapping can be fun, I think it needs to be used to help us make an argument about a text or texts. Otherwise, we’ve moved from literary studies (albeit in a DH vein) to geography.

Having said that, I’ll admit that we don’t always know the argument that the map will help us make until we have made it. I experienced that myself when I made a map of Jhumpa Lahiri’s short story “Sexy” for use in my survey of American Lit this semester (KMZ available at briancroxall.pbworks.com/f/Lahiri%27sSexy.kmz). Once I could see the story spatially, a whole new aspect of it revealed itself to me.

In any case, I’ll look forward to our revolving conversations about mapping and the humanities.

It sounds to me like there may need to be a lot of discussion in various sessions about “fuzzy data”–though even that term doesn’t really seem to capture the uncertainties in these entities. Maybe “fluffy data?” I know it has certainly been talked about by lots of folks before, so hopefully we can build on some of that.

Whatever we call it, there are clearly descriptions of real and imagined places and dates whose precise limits are uncertain. How do we represent “antebellum” or “the Gilded Age” or “a day’s ride outside of Dodge” or “the industrial north?” Let alone the imagined and semi-imagined places that Amanda mentions in her posts. I’d love to see how Middle Earth and Narnia could get mapped–and the idea of blending both the real and imagined in one resource is fantastic.

My simple sense is that if we can each individually grasp (and share) what is meant by these places or times, we ought to be able to represent them somehow digitally, but the how doesn’t come easy . . .

A renewed emphasis on geography is an unanticipated consequence of the digital turn. Making even a simple map was a huge pain in the ass even a few years ago. Now the maps generate themselves–scroll down the “About This Book” page at the Google Books scan of Voyage Round the World by Charles Wilkes (1849). Every modern place name in the book automatically identified and plotted on a Google Map, with links back to the specific page of the book where the place is mentioned.

But you guys are absolutely right that not everything can be mapped, and that imprecise place names (“I was a day’s ride outside of Dodge when Black Bart and his gang rode up…”) are difficult cases.

Patrick: re unintended consequences — exactly. Google Maps and Earth are great for mapping real-life, present-day information at a very fine-grained level. But for part-fictional, part-real settings, or for historical information, or for hazy locations, it can give the wrong impression. It would be very interesting to develop some terminology for imaginary vs. real places (imaginary gardens with real toads in them?).

(Also, Tolkien’s maps of Middle Earth were a very early factor in my interest in fictional mapping!)

I have little experience with geo tools, but have one similar issue as I’m trying to model info about things that classes study: I can say a class studies New York City, but should I distinguish that kind of statement from the statement that a class studies MiddleEarth?