CLS0125 Introduction to Geospatial Humanities

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Group curations

Bates Hall, Boston Public Library, ca. 1996

The act of curation – which we might define as the assembly of co-related materials to tell a story, make an argument, or build a collection – forms an important pillar of the geospatial humanities. All mapping is necessarily a form of curating: as historians, geographers, and mapmakers, we selectively choose what kinds of information to display within our final products.

Starting in Week 4, we’ll kick off some of our class meetings with a short curatorial introduction to a project, process, or product with applications or relevance to the geospatial humanities. In groups of 3-4, students will briefly and collaboratively present a “curation” of their choice, explaining how their chosen project was created, what kinds of spatial data were required in order to make it, and why it should merit our attention. Additionally, students will identify areas of growth for the project, carefully interrogating its design elements and/or its data elements.

Instructions

In self-assigned groups of 3-4, choose a project, process, or product with applications/relevance to the geospatial humanities, e.g.:

• A particularly rich humanistic dataset
• An interactive web map or mapping project
• A still (e.g., static) map or series of still maps
• A methodology or workflow

By Week 3 of class (February 6), curatorial groups must select their curation groups by completing this Google form.

Requirements

The curatorial introduction should be about 12 minutes in length, and at 15 minutes, groups will be unceremoniously cut off. They should respond to the following prompts:

1. How is this project, process, or product engaged with the geospatial humanities? What is it arguing and what are its themes?
2. What are the key spatial datasets associated with this project, process, or product? Be as specific as possible.
3. What methodologies were used to create the data? If the authors don’t explain, make an educated guess.
4. What areas of growth can you find in this project, process, or product? More specifically, what kinds of spatial datasets would you add and what kinds of different design choices would you make if you were the lead developer/curator?

Curatorial groups have total autonomy over the format of the curation. Whether the presentation includes a slide deck, a live demo, a hands-on interaction, or something else entirely is completely okay with me, as long as it stays within the 15-minute mark.

Examples

Check out this list of suitable topics for a curation.