Grounding Truth: Critical and Data-Driven Approaches to the History of Travel
Midura, Rachel Clare (1); Holterman, Bart (2); Palladino, Chiara (3); Toffolo, Sandra (4); Taylor-Poleskey, Molly (5)
1: Virginia Tech University; 2: Georg-August-University; 3: Furman University; 4: Italian-German Historical Institute; 5: Harvard University
Recent years have made spatial data more accessible than ever before, yet premodern spatial data productively challenges existing methodologies. What does it mean to georeconcile a place known by many names, or a name referring to many, or even imagined places? How can data presentation be nuanced to reflect the experience of a traveler passing through a customs point, or recognizing a landmark in the distance? These questions must impact the geospatial semantics of historical travel, and, we propose, best answered through a workshop format and its combination of iterative discussion, collaboration, and hands-on exploration. From January-August 2024, participants in the Early Modern Digital Itineraries workshops have done just that. In this panel, EmDigIt participants present the results of collaborative, digital exploration of premodern space with critical attention to recent theoretical and technological shifts in spatial methods.