Author: watrall
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The Geospatial West: Georectifying Historical Native American Space
Earlier this week I came across an unusual map in the Library of Congress’ digitized collections. Part of what made this map such a fascinating find was the addendum of metadata about the map’s creation. In 1801, a Blackfoot man referred to as “Ackomak-Ki” or “The Feathers” sketched this birds-eye view of the upper Missouri…
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Critical Takeaways from a Lesbian Activist Organization
This last month, I presented some of my findings from my dissertation at the International Writing Centers Association Conference in Columbus, OH. It was my first opportunity to share the work I’ve been doing over the course of the last two years with one of my main scholarly communities. In particular, I wanted to share…
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Cultural Preservation and 3D Recreations
On October 31st, news broke that fire had engulfed the major buildings of Shuri Castle, a landmark of Okinawa located in the prefectural capital of Naha. The fire destroyed the main structure of the castle and gutted many other buildings. The present day incarnation of Shuri Castle is itself a reconstruction of the original 16th…
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D3.js for German-Jewish Intellectual Networks
During the summer, I worked with Matthew Handelman on a digital humanities project related to his research on German-Jewish intellectuals in the twentieth century. Matt received a DH@MSU Summer Seed Grant to build a network visualization of the connections between intellectuals in the German-Jewish community during the Weimar Republic. I entered the project after Matt…
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Looking forward to Digital Humanities at the African Studies Association
As I progress through the CHI-Fellowship I have continued to learn about the important role of digital humanities for myself as both a scholar and instructor. In the past few weeks, I have become more comfortable with GitHub, Timeline.JS, bootstrap, leaflet, and numerous other digital tools. I look forward to not only producing my own…
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Spatial Narratives within Geography Education
This blog post contains a topic discussion on spatial narratives within geography education, a recap of the month and goals for next month. Spatial Narratives What is a spatial narrative? In Including Students’ Geographies, Schlemper et al. described spatial narratives as “a means of “unpacking” [interactions within one’s community] to promote critical and…
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Teaching with Digital Humanities: A Toolkit for Western History in the Digital Age
In mid-October, I presented on a roundtable titled “Teaching the American West Online” at the Western History Association’s annual conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. Our panel also included Dr. Jennifer Thigpen (Washington State University), Cassandra Clark ( Ph.D. Candidate, University of Utah), and was chaired by Dr. Sandra Mathews (Nebraska Wesleyan University). I enjoyed the…
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Digital Public Archaeology and the Power of the People
In archaeology, engaging with the public has become an increasingly important aspect of our work. Not only do these interactions help educate people about what archaeologists actually do, but it also helps to demonstrate the importance of our discipline and encourages the incorporation of multiple perspectives in interpreting the past. Archaeologists can engage with the…
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Campus As Laboratory: An Oral History of the Campus Archaeology Program
Earlier this month, I presented a poster on an oral history project conducted by myself and Dr. Alice Lynn McMichael (LEADR, Director) at the Midwest Archaeological Conference. The primary goal of this project was to span best practices in oral history research and archaeology, while promoting the public outreach mission of both the Campus Archaeology…
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Mapping What Is/Isn’t There
As a new fellow, I’m still getting a sense of what this all means, so please excuse the LiveJournal nature of the first few posts. Mapping, in my discipline, means something different than it does in most contexts. Essentially, mapping is an acknowledgment of “signposts”— trends, notable events, themes— across a story. At least this…