Resources for in-class discussion
Map of Salem Village and map of witchcraft accusers and accused
Napoleon’s invasion of Russia in 1912
On the Origin of Species: The Preservation of Favoured Traces
Digitally reconstructing Washington, DC as it appeared circa 1814
Questions
1. How might a humanist approach or use data sets differently than a scientist would?
2. Why might historians want to create visualizations?
3. What are the advantages and liabilities (for historians and their audiences) of transforming data into visualizations?
4. Which of the visualizations in the reading, or at the links above, do you find particularly interesting or persuasive, and why? Which ones are less interesting or persuasive?
An in-class exercise
1. Find online either (a) sources that you could convert into data or (b) an existing dataset drawn from primary sources.
2. What questions might an historian ask of this data?
3. What methods might the historian use to make sense of this data?
4. What kind(s) of visualization(s) do you think would be most useful to (a) the historian as she conducts her analysis and (b) the audience for her work?
5. Post your responses to these questions, along with a link to the data or dataset you used in your example, to the course blog. In the category list, check the box for “data experimentation.” Be sure to include the first names of everyone in your group.