Tag: Storymap

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Blog #5

Blog #5

The process of mapping events from my memoir showed me just how important the visualization of geographical locations really is in understanding the text. My StoryMap helped me become more familiar with not only the text in my memoirs but also with the person the text was about: Benigna Briand. Mapping this memoir, I saw Benigna’s story come to life. As Bodenhamer wrote, my memoir served as a “mediator between us and the world it represents, and the two were brought together when mapped (Bodenhamer 25). Mapping brings you to this next level of understanding, especially in the content I transcribed, because it makes you familiar with the places mentioned in the memoir. Because all of my memoir took place in England, I had no sense of the geographical relativity of the places mentioned.

As stated by Bodenhamer, an artifact, such as a memoir, anchored in space (geographical/ mapping), creates a unique view and dynamic memory (Bodenhamer 27 & 28). Likewise, putting this artifact, or Briand’s memoir, into space through a StoryMap brings on a whole new and unique perspective. Bodenhamer also points out that deep mapping immerses the user into a virtual world of emotions based on the information mapped/ known (Bodenhamer 28). When mapping my memoir, I became enthralled in the world that was created. It was like I was there for specific events in Benigna Briand’s life. Mapping also made me realize certain geographical attributes from my memoir and the high importance of specific events. For instance, I knew that Benigna Briand was baptized in a lake, What I didn’t know was how far this lake was from Benigna’s home. The journey to this lake to get baptized had to have taken place over several days, and mapping this event showed me just how important it must’ve been in Benigna’s life to travel such a great distance. Also, I knew that Benigna traveled from Bath to Bristol every Sunday for 6 years in order to attend religious ceremonies, braving any poor weather or dangers that were on the way. Until mapping this event, I didn’t realize how far Bristol is from Bath, showing me just how dedicated Benigna was to the Moravian Society.

When creating a story to map, I decided to include all important events in the life of Benigna Briand, regardless of their geogrpahical location. Even if two consecutive events occurred in the same location, I mapped it. I did this because I wanted my map to not only show the many places travelled in my memoir but also the places in which several events took place. The impact that this has on the story as a whole, in my opinion, is large; mapping in this way also shows the importance of certain locations  to the life of the person that is being mapped. For instance, in my story there are several events that take place in Lyneham of Wiltshire because that is where Benigna spent most of her early life, making it a very significant location. This is also seen in Bath, the city in which Benigna and her husband settled down and started a family and Benigna ulitmately passed away.

[iframe src=”https://uploads.knightlab.com/storymapjs/8fff9ff31fd20510f3940093127b8ecd/bethlehem-benigna-briand/index.html” frameborder=”0″ width=”100%” height=”800″></iframe]

 

Categories
Blog #5

Blog #5

Throughout the entire process of creating this timeline for Elizabeth Grundy’s memoir, there have been multiple new perspectives that have been brought to my attention after using StoryMapJS. The whole process was extremely helpful in allowing me to gain a deeper understanding of this memoir, and after creating this timeline I have a much more clear idea of what Elizabeth Grundy’s life was like for her in each of the different places she traveled to throughout her memoir. “We see space as the platform for multiplicity, a realm where all perspectives are particular and dependent upon experiences unique to an individual, a community, or a period of time”(Bodenhamer, 14). Before looking at Grundy’s memoir geo-spatially, reading her memoir could get to be confusing at times where a bunch of different place names are being tossed around. Once I was familiar with all the place names in the memoir, I was able to connect most of the events that happened in this memoir with the location in which they occurred.

After doing this it was like I had gained an entirely new perspective about the memoir that I had never seen before, which is why I selected this quote from Bodenhamer. It shows that space opens up a whole slew of new insight once you start connecting places with other important pieces of the memoir such as people, events, or emotions. “All spaces contain embedded stories on what has happened there. These stories are both individual and collective, and each of them link geography (space) and history (time)”(Bodenhamer, 16). I found the link between space and time to be the most essential piece of bringing the memoir together.

Bodenhamer claims that each individual location that is mentioned in a story has it’s own embedded story behind it, so learning about these locations can help you to understand the writing more closely. In my case with Elizabeth Grundy’s memoir, gaining an understanding of each of the locations in the memoir, and being able to understand which events occurred there made the memoir much seem more smooth and fluent. “[Mapping] promises an alternate view of history and culture through dynamic representation of memory and place, a view that is visual and experiential, fusing qualitative and quantitative data within real and conceptual space”(Bodenhamer, 29). The biggest take away from this whole process for me was learning the different between visual and experiential representations. Mapping with StoryMapJS allows us to incorporate both of these into one efficient representation.

 

https://storymap.knightlab.com/edit/?id=grundy-memoir-caleb

 

Categories
Blog #5

Blog #5

     Having the opportunity to use StoryMapJs was a unique one that has never been presented to me in any other class. I had done much of the visualization before in high school with tools similar to Voyant, and I had made timelines for almost all of my history classes, but being able to incorporate a whole new dimension, location, into my analysis is really something quite unique.

     While analyzing the space that Anna Elizabeth Rauch and her fellow missionaries covered on a map, I was able to see just how much distance they covered, and I realized the physical toll that this took on them. In the memoir, Anna passed away from rheumatic fever. From looking at this map, I can safely assume that the long travel across all of Jamaica was moderately harmful to her immune system, thus contributing to her demise. I think this is what Bodenhamer means when he says “All spaces contain embedded stories based on what has happened there (Bodenhamer 16). Now that I could see the full space that they covered, I was further able to understand the story.

     Relative to this time period, the concept of space and stance is extremely significant. In 1752, moving transnationally and even transcontinentally was a very strong commitment. Nowadays, it can take hours and sometimes even days to move that distance. In that time period, it took weeks, sometimes even months, to cover that span.

     Spatial Humanities is definitely more relevant to this time period because of the introduction of Geographic Information Systems, or GIS. Bodenhamer is an advocate of this practice, and he states that GIS is a “seductive technology” and that its images “appeal to us in ways more subtle and powerful than words can” (Bodenhamer 17). I feel that GIS is one of the most efficient ways to analyze space for the field of humanities.

     Anna Elizabeth Rauch’s journey did cover half the distance of Jamaica, but once she got to Mesopotamia (in Westmoreland), she mainly went from there to New Carmel and back, thus not providing for much GIS analysis. Also, there were not many maps available that had specific detail about where the plantations exactly were. Bodenhamer believes that GIS “favors precise data that can be managed and parsed within a highly structured tabular database”(Bodenhamer 23). GIS may not have been the best for this memoir, but it should be ideal for most.

     Since the missionaries didn’t move around much once they arrived at the sugarcane plantation, I decided to depict different Moravian Stations in Jamaica for most of my slides. I told the story of Anna, and then mapped a new location that a station was created upon. As Anna and her fellow missionaries completed more work in Mesopotamia, I would show the precise location of other stations, thus conveying the spread of the Moravians. I believe that this was the best way of representing the information in that it could properly give a scope to how large the Moravian movement was in Jamaica, and what overall effect they had on the slave populations there.

Find the link for my StoryMapJs here: https://uploads.knightlab.com/storymapjs/cb5a3878723de184037f5257d0519d56/anna-elizabeth-rauch/index.html

 

[iframe src=”https://uploads.knightlab.com/storymapjs/cb5a3878723de184037f5257d0519d56/anna-elizabeth-rauch/index.html” frameborder=”0″ width=”100%” height=”800″][/iframe]