Project Brainstorming: Class and Physical Space

One idea which really interests me and which I would very much like to pursue as a final project is the idea of social class and physical space. In particular, I am interested in how and why social class and physical space overlap. Last semester, I spent a weekend in Montreal and during my time there I had a chance to walk to the top of Mount Royal to get a better look at the city. I had just recently read the book The Empire Within: Postcolonial Thought and Political Activism in Sixties Montreal for Professor Carstairs‘ HIST*4220 class which outlines the history of particular neighborhoods of Montreal. What I was struck by the most, was that the physical manifestation of social class outlined in The Empire Within is still visible. The picture below looks out over the neighborhoods of the traditionally working class south west. The south west of Montreal, as the hyperlink explains, is going through a period of regeneration, however its industrial working class heritage is still visible in comparison to the skyscrapers of the downtown core and the 19th century buildings of the McGill campus.

Looking Out Over the Southwest of Montreal

Downtown Montreal and Some Buildings from the McGill Campus

The exercise in GIS that our class did on January 22nd got me thinking about geography, social class, and change. The idea of layers of information seemed to fit quite well into the changing socio-economic and geographic makeup of not only Montreal, but other cities as well. Demographic information could not only legitimize, but enhance visualizations of changes to the composition of cities. Creating an interactive map which can illustrate interactions between socio-economic factors and geography is my prospective idea for my final project. Such a map could include photos, quantitative information, and layers emphasizing a changing historical context. I would like to investigate the possibility of making such a map for Guelph. I would also like to look into the resources available for such a project and discuss the feasibility of creating such a map. Additionally, I would like to see if there are chronological aerial photos of Guelph available for use. I am still in the developing stages in terms of this project to say the least and I am open to different ideas, suggestions, and feedback, so let me know what you guys think!

The Potential of GIS for the Humanities (especially history!)

The project which I have chosen to blog about this week which integrates historical research with GIS technology is a project at the University of Western Ontario called Imagining London. One of Imagining London’s central researchers is Dr. Jason Gilliland whose projects include studies of the evolution of London, Ontario due to natural and anthropogenic forces. For example, current projects include a study using GIS technologies of the impacts of fire on not only the physical form but also social form of the city. An additional project is the impact of flooding on London, Ontario, in particular the floods of 1883 and 1937. One interesting element of this project that I discovered is that the home base of the project is not a room lined with books, or as many of us might envisage, the library, but the Human Environments Analysis Laboratory. In terms of the question of how GIS technologies are useful to scholars and to myself, there are a few answers that seem to jump out. Imagining London perhaps cynically suggests that GIS tools are advantageous in history because they are practical and good for employment. One could also state, as MacFadyen suggests, that one of the biggest strengths of using GIS, in this case in conjunction with aerial photography, is that it breaks down academic walls and offers and interdisciplinary approach. This seems sensible as the study of physical landscapes, even in a historic sense, may necessitate a basic understanding of concepts such as erosion, forest succession, among others. In this blog post, I would like to delve a bit deeper into the topic and speculate that the most effective use of GIS technology is not in the tangible ways it helps historians approach a topic, but in how it allows historians to relate a topic to their audience.

I became familiar with Joshua MacFadyen’s work, in particular his work with aerial photography, last semester in Dr. Catherine Carstairs’ HIST*4220 Canadian Cultural Identity course. The blog entry which piqued my interest the most was his blog post “Exposing Nature: Aerial Photography as Witness and Memorial in Bonshaw, Prince Edward Island.” This article touches on the proposed re-routing of the Trans Canada Highway through an endangered tract of Hemlock forest in Strathgartney Provincial Park. This proposition triggered outrage from locals which resulted in the Prince Edward Island government proposing a second plan called Plan B which essentially changed the route but not its ecological impact. These events caused local residents to set up protest camps and launch a campaign called Stop “Plan B.” Using aerial photos collected between 1935 – 2010, MacFadyen reveals the untouched nature of the tract of Hemlock amidst agricultural development and disturbance. What is significant about this article to me, is that MacFadyen uses digital technology not only to document historical development in the area (or lack thereof) but to allow people to experience history and to give that experience meaning. That, to me, is the most valuable usage of GIS technology.

In my opinion, it is the idea of experience which has allowed the use of GIS technology to gain a substantial following amongst historians. MacFadyen himself explains this in “Mobile Mapping and Historical GIS in the Field” that it is “…in order to experience a place…” that one must understand it in its context. In this sense, GIS technology enables history to be learned not only through books, journals, and research, but through experience as well. Even in reference to Anne Kelly Knowles’ study of the Battle of Gettysburg, Tony Horwitz describes Knowles’ objective as follows: “…she wants to know what commanders could see of the battlefield on the second day at Gettysburg.” It is this idea of experiencing history which motivated Knowles in the first place as a child on trips to national historic sites in the United States. I think Nick also touched on this concept in his own blog entry. Using digital satellite mapping technologies, it becomes not only possible to identify the foundations of pyramids, but to visually reconstruct them and experience them a form closest as possible to their original form.

In terms of how GIS technology will be useful to myself, this week’s assignment has given me some new ideas for my project this semester and, come next Tuesday, I would like to investigate the possibility of a GIS project for the city of Guelph perhaps even integrating aerial photography if such resources exist. This would give me a potential opportunity to expand my knowledge of a city which most of us experience on a daily basis and perhaps add historical context to that experience.

Additionally, for those interested, I have done some digging on the “Plan B” highway. Protestors have been removed from their camp by the RCMP and it seems as though the project will continue.

The ORLANDO Project

The Orlando Project is an academic resource of which I knew nothing before this assignment. The scope and detail of the website are stunning and, in fact, overwhelming upon first use. The Orlando Project, however is not merely a database: it is a database with a purpose. I was very impressed with the philosophical rigor of the site itself. The Orlando Project‘s attempts to do three things: reconcile postmodern criticisms of literary history, create a new literary history which is non-hegemonic and non-narrative, and lastly, to create a literary history by women for women.  I believe that the theoretical and philosophical foundations of this website make it an excellent example of the success which can arise from a fusion of digital technologies and the humanities. The creators used digital technology to bring humanistic and egalitarian goals into fruition. An excellent example of this is how digital technologies were utilized to bring together a range of professionals from the University of Guelph, the University of Alberta, the Illinois Institute of Technology, and beyond. The fact that women and men were brought together from such distances and that these individuals worked collectively to author their works is an impressive example of the collective pooling of talent and effort. The creativity, passion, and scope behind this project are admirable to say the least and I believe successful as well. One aspect of the Orlando Project which I was skeptical about was the scale of information being presented. When I began to conduct my case study, I felt unsure of the direction I was taking. Once I familiarized myself with the tools provided by the site this became easier to navigate. I still believe this site suffers from the problems of abundance, however, if you have a relatively specific idea of what you are searching for, some basic search criteria will take you a long way. The dense tagging allows you to easily find related content which a person using the site may not have even been aware of before exploring it. For example, the Orlando Project provides information on authors’ political views, upbringing, even romantic life. These tags allow for an infinitely better understanding of the context of authors’ lives.

Iris Murdoch

I did not start out using the site with an author in mind, but rather found one using a Case Study. I began with the topic: “How do women’s literary representations of warfare and its effects between the two twentieth century world wars compare with those in the aftermath of the second?” I made my search criteria more precise in terms of time period to 1925-1940, added Spanish Civil War, chose reverse chronological results, and added the suggested keyword fascist. I then chose Iris Murdoch based on the appearance of one of her works in the result: The Red and the Green. Despite being a self proclaimed communist from the age of 13, Murdoch’s work, rather than representing a standpoint supportive of the anti-fascist Republican forces in Spain, rather takes a more neutral, perhaps even cynical perspective on the war as a whole. Her work delves into the pain of separation from those who have gone to war, in the case of The Red and the Green, those who left to fight in the International Brigades. Murdoch’s work was written in 1965 and expresses the same sentiments as other works from the post-war period. For example, Marghanita Laski’s work expresses similar sentiments, discussing a father in post-war France on a search his son whom he lost during the occupation. Works during the First World War, in contrast, tended to discuss war as a gendered phenomenon. Elizabeth Robins’ Ancilla’s Share: An Indictment of Sex Antagonism, for example, discusses men’s “will to war” whereas May Sinclair’s Tasker Jevons: The Real Story in which, the protagonist, Takser Jevons, sees war as a strictly male activity and a source of comradery.

Blog Post #1: How have my studies at Guelph been affected by digital tools and approaches, and what future possibilities do I see?

My education has been profoundly influenced by the use of digital tools and approaches. In terms of digital approaches to education, online courses stand out to me the most in my own personal experience. I have taken two online courses thus far during my time at Guelph: The Practicing Historian and Canadian Government and Politics. These courses offered many opportunities in terms of digital approaches to teaching, research, and assignments. One example of a unique digital approach was an assignment in my Practicing Historian class which involved examining primary source materials which were uploaded to the courselink page and writing a paper based on these materials. This assignment would have been unthinkable with the resources available for usage in history programs only two decades previous. I feel as though, in this instance, digital tools and approaches truly benefited my class as we were able to engage collectively with primary source material we might not otherwise have had access to in a way which encouraged creative thought and interpretation and undoubtedly produced a diverse array of results. This being said, I feel as though there are some potential downfalls to digital approaches to education such as online courses. Firstly, I found some material, especially readings, difficult to focus on. The reason for this is that I am, at least to some extent, an auditory learner. Lectures, in my own experience, have better enabled me to remember information and engage more effectively in course material. The reason I stated that there are some potential downfalls in digital approaches to education is because there are many ways with the digital tools available to most students to engage students with a variety of learning styles. Including video clips, photos, and other resources. Using courselink and integrating a wide array of materials offers an effective alternative to text sources which can engage a wider variety of students.

In terms of digital tools, there seems to be no doubt amongst students that internet resources have entirely revolutionized the research process and most other aspects of academics. In some ways, digital tools are enormously beneficial. Materials which would have taken hours to seek out in an archive or library can now, in most cases, be accessed within a few minutes. Databases have given students access to the latest innovative scholarship in most fields of study. This being said, there are problems with digital tools which I have experienced myself as a history student. In William J. Turkel’s blog post “Going Digital” the author describes the central problem in the past in terms of research being scarcity. (Turkel 2011) Certainly, as a student today, I can comfortably say that this problem no longer exists. However, Turkel goes on to say that today the central problem to research is, ironically, abundance. (Turkel 2011) In an essay I wrote in the Fall 2012 semester, I did some extensive research involving newspaper articles. The problem I had, was that no matter how much time I devoted to my research, it was not possible for me to say I had conducted an in depth examination of newspaper articles from the period: There were simply too many. Though digital tools might have created this abundance, they are also, in part, the solution. I tried some of Turkel’s recommendations in terms of research and I believe that they will come in handy in terms of finding connections in my research. Additionally, they will be helpful in narrowing the variety of sources I will be viewing to those most relevant to my topic. Even the process of composing essays is made easier by digital tools. In the 2012 Winter Semester, I downloaded Zotero and was very impressed by the range of useful functions the program has and the ease with which bibliographies could be generated. Though there are some potential problems, digital tools have been critically important to my own work as a history student and will, no doubt, continue to be in the future.

In terms of the future possibilities of digital approaches and tools to education, I am hesitant to predict or speculate, however, there are a few trends that have been occurring and will continue to occur. In Susan Hockey’s work “The History of Humanities: Computing” in the book A Companion to Digital Humanities, Hockey describes a process of consolidation which occurred as scholars interested in digital humanities made contact and set collective goals on the topic.(Hockey 2004) I believe that consolidation will continue in all facets of the digital humanities. Not only do I think that collaboration in terms of digital humanities projects will allow efforts to be streamlined, but I also think that digital tools themselves will continue to undergo a process of consolidation. An example that I have experienced is the collaboration between the University of Guelph, the University of Waterloo, and Wilfrid Laurier University to expand the materials accessible to students. There are still problems that I believe will continue to characterize the future of digital tools and approaches in education. Though William J. Turkel states that there have historically been financial obstacles to the access of archives, libraries, and other resources, these obstacles still exist. (Turkel 2011) Many journals require expensive subscriptions and are virtually inaccessible to the public. Access to information and intellectual property have been and will continue to be issues in terms of digital tools such as journals and databases.

Works Cited
Hockey, Susan. The History of Humanities Computing. A Companion to Digital Humanities. Edited by Susan Schreibman, Ray Siemens, and John Unsworth. Malden: Blackwell Publishing, 2004. 8.
Turkel, William J. “Going Digital.” William J. Turkel (blog), March 15, 2011. http://williamjturkel.net/2011/03/15/going-digital/ (accessed January 10, 2013).