A b s t r a c t M a c h i n e H u m a n i t i e s G I S Charles B. Travis In Abstract Machine, author Charles Travis uses GIS technology to interpret, analyze, and visualize literary, historical, and philosophical texts. Travis’s study shows how mapping language patterns, fictional landscapes, geographic spaces, and philosophical concepts helps support critical analysis. Travis bases his interpretive model upon the ancient Greek and Roman practice of geographia, and applies it to works by authors including Samuel Beckett, Patrick Kavanagh, Flann O’Brien, and James Joyce. Travis illustrates how scholars in the humanities can experiment with GIS to create visualizations that support and T r illustrate their critical analysis of humanities texts, and survey, navigate, and a v i imagine various story-paths through space and time. s E S R I P R E S S eISBN: 9781589483699 This page intentionally left blank. This page intentionally left blank. Cover image of abstract design of steampunk watch, digital fractal artwork, courtesy of Keila Neokow and Eli Vokounova/Shutterstock.com. Esri Press, 380 New York Street, Redlands, California 92373-8100 Copyright © 2015 Esri All rights reserved. First edition 2015 Printed in the United States of America 19 18 17 16 15 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows: Travis, Charles, 1964- Abstract machine : humanities GIS / Charles B. Travis. -- First edition. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-58948-368-2 (pbk. : alk. paper)—ISBN 978-1-58948-369-9 (electronic) 1. Geographic information systems. 2. Information storage and retrieval systems—Humanities. 3. Humanities—Technological innovations. 4. Humanities—Methodology. 5. Space and time. 6. Geography and literature. 7. Ireland—In literature. 8. Ireland—History. I. Title. 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CityEngine is a registered trademark of Procedural AG and is distributed under license by Esri. Other companies and products or services mentioned herein may be trademarks, service marks, or registered marks of their respective mark owners. Ask for Esri Press titles at your local bookstore or order by calling 800-447-9778, or shop online at esri.com/esripress. Outside the United States, contact your local Esri distributor or shop online at eurospanbookstore.com/esri. Esri Press titles are distributed to the trade by the following: In North America: In the United Kingdom, Europe, Middle East and Africa, Asia, and Australia: Ingram Publisher Services Eurospan Group Toll-free telephone: 800-648-3104 3 Henrietta Street Toll-free fax: 800-838-1149 London WC2E 8LU E-mail: [email protected] United Kingdom Telephone: 44(0) 1767 604972 Fax: 44(0) 1767 601640 E-mail: [email protected] Portions of chapters 2, 4, 6, and 8 are reproduced by kind permission of the following: Springer Science + Business Media: History and GIS: Epistemologies, Considerations, and Reflections by Alexander von Lünen and Charles Travis, editors; chapter 12 “GIS and History: Epistemologies, Reflections, and Considerations” by Charles Travis, p. 173–193, 2013. Taylor & Francis Group, www.tandonline.com, “Transcending the cube: Translating GIScience time and space perspectives in a humanities GIS” by Charles Travis, International Journal of Geographical Information Science (IJGIS), vol. 28:5, p. 1149–1164, 2014; and from “From the ruins of time and space” by Charles Travis, City, vol. 17, issue no. 2, p. 209–233, 2013, article DOI: 10.1080/13604813.2012.754191. Edinburgh University Press, http://www.euppublishing.com/journal/IJHAC, “Abstract Machine—Geographical Information Systems (GIS) for literary and cultural studies: ‘Mapping Kavanagh’” by Charles Travis, International Journal of Humanities and Arts Computing, vol. 4, p. 17–37, available online October 2010, DOI 10.3366/ijhac.2011.0005, ISSN 1753–8548. To my son, Senan James: like this book, you were a long time coming but well worth the wait! This page intentionally left blank. Contents Preface: Abstract machine ............................................................xi Acknowledgments ........................................................................xv Part 1: GIS and the digital humanities .............................................1 1. Introduction ............................................................................... 3 From Lascaux to the Sea of Tranquility .............................................................................................4 What is a GIS? .........................................................................................................................................4 GIS and the digital humanities ............................................................................................................7 Contents ....................................................................................................................................................8 2. Toward the spatial turn ............................................................11 A brief history of Western geographical thought ..........................................................................12 Post-structuralist perspectives ............................................................................................................16 Deep mapping ........................................................................................................................................17 GIS and the space of conjecture .........................................................................................................19 3. Writing time and space with GIS: The conquest and mapping of seventeenth-century Ireland ..........................23 Period, place, and GIS ..........................................................................................................................23 Geovisualizing Irish history ...............................................................................................................25 Rebellion and conquest in 3D ............................................................................................................26 Surveying the Cromwellian Settlement ...........................................................................................29 William Petty and the Down Survey ...............................................................................................31 From the ballybetagh to the barony ...................................................................................................33 The Books of Survey and Distribution ...............................................................................................35 Database mapping the Books ..............................................................................................................36 Visualizing the webs of history ..........................................................................................................41 viii Contents Part 2: Writers, texts, and mapping ................................................45 4. GIS and the poetic eye .............................................................47 Mapping Kavanagh ..............................................................................................................................47 Bakhtinian GIS .....................................................................................................................................49 Creating a digital dinnseanchas .........................................................................................................50 Plotting the poetic eye ..........................................................................................................................57 5. Modeling and visualizing in GIS: The topological influences of Homer’s Odyssey and Dante’s Inferno on James Joyce’s Ulysses (1922) ...................................61 Joycean cartographies ...........................................................................................................................61 Homer and Dante’s topologies ...........................................................................................................63 Modeling Ulysses ..................................................................................................................................64 The topologies of Ulysses ......................................................................................................................65 Upper Hell ..............................................................................................................................................67 Middle of Hell (City of Dis) ...............................................................................................................70 Lower Hell ..............................................................................................................................................72 Purgatory ................................................................................................................................................74 Visualizing a “new Inferno in full sail” .............................................................................................76 6. P sychogeographical GIS: Creating a “kaleidoscope equipped with consciousness,” Flann O’Brien’s At Swim-Two-Birds (1939) ................................83 The novel as urban GIS ........................................................................................................................83 Spatializing At Swim-Two-Birds ........................................................................................................84 Psychogeographical mapping with GIS ...........................................................................................85 Vico-Bakhtin timespaces .....................................................................................................................88 Counter-cartographical GIS ...............................................................................................................93 7. Geovisualizing Beckett .............................................................97 Samuel Beckett’s GIStimeline ............................................................................................................97 Geovisual narratology ..........................................................................................................................99 Dublin-Paris, 1916–30 ......................................................................................................................103 Beckett’s bottled climates .................................................................................................................106 ix Contents London, 1933–35 ................................................................................................................................110 France, 1945–46 .................................................................................................................................111 Bricolage and biography .....................................................................................................................116 Part 3. Toward a humanities GIS ..................................................119 8. The terrae incognitae of humanities GIS ................................121 The lost mapmaker .............................................................................................................................121 The map theater ..................................................................................................................................122 The geographer’s science and the storyteller’s art ........................................................................124 About the author ........................................................................129 Index ..........................................................................................131