Spatial History: Mapping the Past

DIGI30022 Spatial History: Mapping the Past 20 Semester 2 Undergraduate Level 3 Luca Scholz Unit coordinator 1 FHEQ level (Framework for Higher Education Qualifications) ' Last part of a Bachelors ' European Credit Transfer & Accumulation System Rating : 10.0 How can maps help us understand the past? Whether we consider the geography of the Holocaust, the trade winds that fueled the rise of the British Empire, or the history of epidemic disease, maps are fundamental to grasping some of the most critical problems in early and late modern history. This course introduces students to spatial history, a strand of history that studies the past by studying and making maps. Each week, we will look at a different topic in this emergent field, with readings ranging from themes such as the history of borders, empires and indigenous land, urban decline, to epidemic disease and others. As part of the exercise to think spatially about the past, students will receive basic training in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and will learn to create their own maps. Students will apply those skills to a particular topic and develop their own expertise in that area.No prior technical skills are needed for this course as all training will be provided. How can maps help us understand the past? Whether we consider the geography of the Holocaust, the trade winds that fueled the rise of the British Empire, or the history of epidemic disease, maps are fundamental to grasping some of the most critical problems in early and late modern history. This course introduces students to spatial history, a strand of history that studies the past by studying and making maps. Each week, we will look at a different topic in this emergent field, with readings ranging from themes such as the history of borders, empires and indigenous land, urban decline, to epidemic disease and others. As part of the exercise to think spatially about the past, students will receive basic training in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and will learn to create their own maps. Students will apply those skills to a particular topic and develop their own expertise in that area.No prior technical skills are needed for this course as all training will be provided. This course aims at: •    Exploring the use (and abuse) of maps and spatial concepts in history. •    Identifying a historical question amenable to geographical analysis and explore the use of spatial concepts and techniques to answer it. •    Developing basic skills in GIS (Geographic Information Systems), cartography, and data visualisation. •    Apply skills and concepts relating to spatial history to historical research. At the end of this course it is expected that you will be able to:•    Critically evaluate the ways in which historians make and use maps. •    Recognise how maps both enhance and limit our understanding of spatial phenomena. •    Challenge basic geographical notions that we may take for granted as misconceived and ethnocentric. •    Devise alternative ways of understanding geographies of power beyond the model of the nation state. <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" cols="6" id="ACE_UM_CRSE_DERIVED_UM_GROUPBOX10$0" role="presentation" width="791"> <tbody> <tr> <td align="left" valign="top"> <table> <tbody> <tr> <td align="left">•    Develop a spatial argument. •    Clarify and condense a broad research topic into its manageable essence. •    Learn to use geospatial visualisation as a means of generating new questions and revealing historical relations. •    Critically reflect on how data modelling choices influence the interpretation of the data. •    Develop a critical perspective on maps and learn to identify misuse, oversimplification, or misleading use of colour or symbology and act on your criticism by creating maps of your own.</td> </tr> </tbody> </table> </td> </tr> </tbody></table> <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" cols="6" id="ACE_UM_CRSE_DERIVED_UM_GROUPBOX11$0" role="presentation" width="791"> <tbody> <tr> <td align="left" valign="top"> <table> <tbody> <tr> <td align="left">•    Use GIS and web mapping applications to collect, analyse, and explore spatial data. •    Create high quality maps and graphs. •    See a digital research project from inception to completion. •    Present an argument through visualization and narrative, combining short texts, supporting graphics, figures, and tables.</td> </tr> </tbody> </table> </td> </tr> </tbody></table> <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" cols="6" id="ACE_UM_CRSE_DERIVED_UM_GROUPBOX12$0" role="presentation" width="791"> <tbody> <tr> <td align="left" valign="top"> <table> <tbody> <tr> <td align="left">•    Work collaboratively with a team with diverse skills and potentially conflicting visions. •    Gather, clean, and synthesise data from a diverse range of sources. •    Present information and arguments orally, verbally and visually with due regard to the target audience. •    Think creatively how to develop and communicate your work.</td> </tr> </tbody> </table> </td> </tr> </tbody></table> Analytical skills This course enables you to critically read and evaluate spatial arguments, maps, and visualisations. You will learn to recognise biased, misleading, or oversimplifying forms of visual representation, but also to create better ones to understand complex questions. Group/team working The course will train you to collaborate in a team with diverse skills and potentially conflicting visions. Innovation/creativity The course allows you to formulate your own research questions, condense them into a manageable agenda, and answer them using new tools that allow you to develop and present your argument through visualization and narrative. Oral communication By the end of this course students will be able to collect, clean, and join data from different sources, generate their own maps, visuals, and posters, and understand key principles of data visualisation which are an essential skillset in the creative industries. You will be able to present information and arguments orally, verbally and visually with due regard to the target audience Other With its combined focus on technical proficiency, creativity, and criticism, the course allows students to develop skills and the confidence needed to thrive in a variety of non-academic workplaces, including marketing and communication, journalism, digital media, libraries and museums. What is Spatial History?                  Workshop: GIS Basics and ProjectionsVisualising Space                    Workshop: WebmappingThinking Space: Spatial Theory                   Workshop: Introduction to QGIS 1Geographies of Race and Inequality: Urban Segregation                   Workshop: Introduction to QGIS 2Networks                                    Workshop: Network AnalysisWalled States, Waning Sovereignty: Putting the State on the Map                   Workshop: NetYour Own Data in GIS: From Table to MapPropaganda, or How to Lie with Maps                   Workshop: Spatial StorytellingIntangibles: Atmospheric Mapping                   Workshop: Historical Maps in GIS: GeoreferencingCounter-Cartographies and Indigenous Land                   Workshop: Mapping Text: Geographic Text AnalysisTroubleshootingFinal Presentation of Projects This syllabus is indicative only   The course is taught through a weekly seminar (3 hours), which combines lectures, full class discussions, practical labs, and small group work. If the COVID situation allows it, the practical lab sessions will take place at the Centre for Digital Humanities and include training in QGIS and data visualisation software. Alternatively, teaching will take place using Zoom and cloud software. Students have access to two scheduled weekly consultation hours to meet individually with the course unit director to discuss their ideas and progress. All course material will be made available on Blackboard. All feedback will incorporate advice on improving future performance. 0 Other 100% <figure class="table"><table><tbody><tr><td>Assessment task</td><td>Formative or Summative</td><td>Length</td><td>Weighting within unit (if relevant)</td></tr><tr><td>Final project</td><td>Summative</td><td>4000 words</td><td>70%</td></tr><tr><td>Presentation of a digital map</td><td>Summative</td><td>5 minutes</td><td>30%</td></tr><tr><td>Intermediate requirements:a) Project proposals (week 3)b) Project draft (week 8)</td><td>Formative</td><td>Project proposal: 200 words</td><td>0%</td></tr></tbody></table></figure> <figure class="table"><table border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="0"><tbody><tr><td>Feedback method</td><td>Formative or Summative</td></tr><tr><td>Oral feedback on intermediate project requirements as they are completed</td><td>Formative</td></tr><tr><td>30 minutes of the weekly seminars will be dedicated to discussing project progress and address issues as soon as they arise. Week 9 is entirely dedicated to project troubleshooting ahead of the final submission. Moreover, students are encouraged to seek formative feedback during seminars and in consultation hours.</td><td>Formative</td></tr><tr><td>Detailed written feedback on final collaborative project and essay, designed to include advice on improving future performance.</td><td>Summative</td></tr></tbody></table></figure> Y Amrith, Sunil, Unruly Waters: How Mountain Rivers and Monsoons Have Shaped South Asia’s History (Penguin: 2018).Brown, Wendy: Walled States, Waning Sovereignty (Zone: 2010).Edney, Matthew H., Cartography: The Ideal and Its History (University of Chicago Press: 2019)Gordon, Colin: Mapping Decline: St. Louis and the Fate of the American City (University of Pennsylvania Press: 2008)Hämäläinen, Pekka, The Comanche Empire (Yale University Press: 2009).Massey, Doreen B., For Space (London, 2005).Mullaney, Thomas, Christian Henriot, Jeffrey Snyder-Reinke, David McClure, and Glen Worthey, The Chinese Deathscape: Grave Reform in Modern China (Stanford University Press: 2019) [http://chinesedeathscape.org].Scott, James C., The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia (Yale University Press: 2009).Weizman, Eyal, Hollow Land: Israel’s Architecture of Occupation (Verso, 2014).White, Richard, “What is Spatial History?” Spatial History Lab: Working Paper (2010).Yau, Nathan, Data Points: Visualization That Means Something (Indianapolis, IN: 2013). 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