Schedule

Week 1, 1/8: Orienting

Workshop: Introduction to GIS

Week 2, 1/15: What is a Map?

Workshop: Georeferencing
Project Example: Adam & Zach

Week 3, 1/22: Cartography

  • J.B. Harley, “Deconstructing the Map” Cartographica 26, no. 2 (1989):1-20.
  • Barbara Mundy, “Mapping the Aztec Capital: The 1524 Nuremberg Map of Tenochtitlan, Its Sources and Meanings” Imago Mundi 50, (1998), 11-33.
  • GIS Style guide (just read: Topographic and Thematic Maps, Elements Every Map Should Have, and Graphical Hierarchy sections)
  • Practice your georeferencing skills in QGIS! Come to class with a georectified version of this map plate of Beacon Hill, ready to go on your laptop in GeoTIFF (.tif) file format. Note: the map comes from Plate 7 of this 1895 atlas of Boston. If you need a refresher on georectifying, see Fred Gibbs’s tutorial “Overlaying Historical Maps with QGIS”.

Workshop: Map Design
Project Example: Sebastien & Alex

Week 4, 1/29: Place I

  • Tim Cresswell, Place: A Short Introduction (2004), p. 1-12.
  • Yi-Fu Tuan, Space and Place (1977), Ch. 1-2 (p. 1-18), Ch. 5 (p. 51-66).
  • Skim the following readings to get an introduction to Boston’s African-American history:
    • Stephen Kantrowitz, More Than Freedom: Fighting for Black Citizenship in a White Republic, 1829-1889 (2012), p. 13-24.
    • James Oliver Horton and Lois E. Horton, Black Bostonians (Revised Edition, 1999), p. 1-13.
    • Kathryn Grover and Janine V. da Silva, Historic Resource Study: Boston African American National Historic Site (2002), p. 1-10.
  • Practice your map design skills in QGIS! Use the same 1880 census data from the Urban Transition Project that we used in class and make a map that displays enumeration districts: a) colored according to the percent of its population that is black, b) labeled with the total number of black people in that district. Take a screenshot of your map and include it with your discussion questions over Slack.

Workshop: Spatial Data
Project Example: Shannon

Week 5, 2/5: Space I

  • Doreen Massey, For Space, p. 1-15.
  • Listen to first 10:20 of interview with Doreen Massey for Social Science Bites.
  • George Chauncey, Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940 p. 1-8, 23-24, 178-205.
  • Karen Kemp, “Spatial Analysis, A-Z” from The Spatial Humanities (p. 48-53)
  • Choose one of the following readings:
    • James Oliver Horton and Lois E. Horton, Black Bostonians (Revised Edition, 1999), p. 14-26.
    • Stephen Kantrowitz, More Than Freedom: Fighting for Black Citizenship in a White Republic, 1829-1889 (2012), p. 28-40.
  • Practice your skills making spatial data in QGIS!

Workshop: Spatial Analysis
Project Example: Alicia & Jill

Site Report Due Monday, February 10th by 11:59PM

Week 6, 2/12: Place II
Note: Meet in Digital Scholarship Commons, Snell Library 211

Workshop: 3D Modeling I
Project Example: Anjelica & Cassie

Week 7, 2/19: Virtual and Embodied Space
Note: Meet in Digital Scholarship Commons, Snell Library 211

Workshop: 3D Modeling II
Project Example: Danielle & Claire

Week 8, 2/26: Space II
Note: Ryan McNabb from the National Park Service will be visiting class today to discuss the group project

  • Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space, p. 26-39.
  • Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life (Ch. 7: Walking in the City), p. 91-110.
  • Epeli Hau‘ofa, “Our Sea of Islands” (1993)

Workshop: Project Planning Session
Project Example: Carly

3/4: No Class - Spring Break

Week 9, 3/11: Power, Space, and Place

  • Wendy Cheng and Rashad Shabazz, “Introduction: Race, Space, and Scale in the Twenty-First Century”, Occasion (2015).
  • Kay Anderson, “The Idea of Chinatown: The Power of Place and Institutional Practice in the Making of a Racial Category” (1987)
  • Nancy Lee Peluso, “Whose Woods are These? Counter-Mapping Forest Territories in Kalimantan, Indonesia” (1995)

Workshop: TBD
Project Example: Hailey & Mahala

Update (3/12): Due to Northeastern’s decision to move to online learning in the face of COVID-19, please refer to the Slack workspace for remaining weeks of the semester.

Week 10, 3/18: Spatial Narratives

Workshop: TBD

Week 11, 3/25: Final Project Workshop

  • TBD

Week 12, 4/1: Final Project Workshop

  • TBD

Week 13, 4/8: Final Project Public Presentation