Epistemologies of Spaces and Places: An Introduction

The article introduces a special themed issue of Theory of Science on epistemologies of spaces and places. It provides a disciplinary context of the theme and reviews some of the key arguments that led to the so-called spatial turn in social sciences and the humanities. Science studies in the broad sense have also been affected by this shift of research interest to spatial aspects of science at both micro- and macro-levels. Scientific knowledge has been subject to analyses that stress its local contingencies, mobility and dependencies on spatial arrangements. The ensuing new epistemologies require novel concepts or reconsideration of the older terms, such as universality or objectivity

New Tools for the Humanities: Visualizing Complex Spatial Data

This proposal, New Tools for the Humanities: Visualizing Complex Spatial Data, requests funding to develop new approaches and new tools to enhance the use of spatial data in the humanities. It uses web-based Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technology in an existing product, the North American Religion Atlas, but seeks to make it both easier to use and much more powerful as a research tool through new types of visualizations already developed and tested in prototype by the project collaborators

Exploring Regional Development of Digital Humanities Research: A Case Study for Taiwan

This study analyzed references and source papers of the Proceedings of 2009-2012 International Conference of Digital Archives and Digital Humanities (DADH), which was held annually in Taiwan. A total of 59 sources and 1,104 references were investigated, based on descriptive analysis and subject analysis of library practices on cataloguing. Preliminary results showed historical materials, events, bureaucracies, and people of Taiwan and China in the Qing Dynasty were the major subjects in the tempo-spatial dimensions. The subject-date figure depicted a long-low head and short-high tail curve, which demonstrated both characteristics of research of humanities and application of technology in digital humanities. The dates of publication of the references spanned over 360 years, which shows a long time span in research materials. A majority of the papers (61.41%) were single-authored, which is in line with the common research practice in the humanities. Books published by general publishers were the major type of references, and this was the same as that of established humanities research. The next step of this study will focus on the comparison of characteristics of both sources and references of international journals with those reported in this article.Comment: 25 pages, 10 tables, 5 figure

'“A strange enough region wherein to wander and muse": Mapping Clerkenwell in Victorian Popular Fictions'

Drawing on the work of Bertrand Westphal, this essay attempts to perform a geocritical reading of the London district of Clerkenwell. After discussing the spatial turn in the Humanities and introducing a range of spatial critical approaches, the essay “maps” literary Clerkenwell from the perspectives of genre hybridity and intertextuality, spatially articulate cartography, multifocal and historically aware public perception and potentially transgressive connection to outside areas. Clerkenwell is seen to have stimulated a range of genre fiction, including Newgate, realist, penny and slum fiction, and social exploration journalism. In much of this writing, the district was defined by its negative associations with crime, poverty, incarceration and slaughter. Such negative imageability, the essay suggests, was self-perpetuating, since authors would be influenced by their reading to create literary worlds repeating existing tropes; these literary representations, in turn, influenced readers’ perceptions of the area.Intertextual, multi-layered and polysensorial geocritical readings,the essay concludes, can producepowerful andnuanced pictures of literary placesbut also face a formidable challenge in defining an adequate geocentric corpus

Spacialist: Eine virtuelle Forschungsumgebung für die Spatial ‌Humanities

Die Verarbeitung von Text- und Sprachressourcen mit digitalen Werkzeugen steht im deutschsprachigen Raum im Fokus der Digital Humanities. Nicht-textuelle Ausprägungen der Kultur und deren Verortung in Raum und Zeit finden hierbei in der Regel nur wenig Beachtung. Gerade an dieser Stelle liegt das besondere Potenzial der Verwendung von neuen digitalen Methoden. Diese bieten nun erstmals die Möglichkeit, sämtliche Ausprägungen des menschlichen Kulturschaffens im miteinander in semantische und analysierbare Beziehungen zu setzen. Zugleich ist es mit derartigen integrierten digitalen Methoden nun möglich, bedrohte Objekte und Räume, aber auch immaterielle kulturelle Ausprägungen präzise zu dokumentieren sowie dauerhaft nachhaltig zu bewahren und der Forschung bereitzustellen. Gerade vor dem Hintergrund der infrastrukturellen Entwicklung sowie der mutwilligen Zerstörung des Kulturerbes wird diese Bedeutung nochmals deutlicher. Ziel des Projekts ist es, für die raum- und objektorientierten Wissenschaften ein Werkzeug zur Verfügung zu stellen, das die standardisierte Erfassung und Analyse sowie eine langfristige Archivierung und Nachnutzbarkeit der Daten erlaubt. Ein hoher Standardisierungsgrad sowie eine nachhaltige Vorhaltung der Informationen sind gerade im Bereich der Geisteswissenschaften aufgrund der Unwiederbringlichkeit der Daten von besonderer Bedeutung. Spacialist wird eine einheitliche, Disziplinen überspannende Softwarelösung zur Erfassung, Verwaltung, Archivierung und Publikation von Forschungsdaten werden, die in raum- und objektbezogenen geisteswissenschaftlichen Forschungsprojekten gewonnen werden. Diese Softwarelösung wird an der Universität Tübingen gemeinsam mit den fachwissenschaftlichen Partnern basierend auf existierenden Softwareprototypen und -systemen weiterentwickelt und in deren Workflow und Semantik integriert werden. Das Werkzeug wird ausschließlich Open-Source-Komponenten verwenden und als freie Software entwickelt werden, sodass die Weiterverwendbarkeit an anderen Hochschulen und Forschungseinrichtungen gewährleistet ist. Das Werkzeug soll einen essentiellen Beitrag zur Bewahrung des kulturellen Erbes in seiner materiellen und immateriellen Ausprägung in nationalen und internationalen Forschungsprojekten leisten

Digital Cultural Mapping: Transformative Scholarship and Teaching in the Geospatial Humanities

"Digital Cultural Mapping: Transformative Scholarship in the Geospatial Humanities" is a proposal for a three-week summer institute at UCLA for an interdisciplinary group of 12 humanities scholars and advanced graduate students to learn how to develop innovative publications and courses that harness the theoretical and practical approaches of the "geospatial humanities." Situated at the intersection of critical cartography and information visualization, the Institute will combine a survey of the state of the art in interoperable geospatial tools and publication models, with hands-on, studio-based training in how to integrate GIS data into humanities scholarship, develop robust spatial visualizations, and deploy a suite of mapping tools in the service of creating publication- ready research articles and short monographs. The Institute will culminate in an "impact and evaluation" seminar of these publications with representatives from major university presses and journals

Functional Potential of the Novosibirsk Urban Region in Russian Federation

The research presented in this article focuses on the urban region of Novosibirsk, which is one of the most industrialized part of Siberia and the Asian part of Russian Federation. The research was based on two methods of determining the functions of cities in the national settlement system: a research programme concerning the genesis of functional development and a research programme of specialized functions, the purpose of which is to determine the economic base of territorial units. To show relationships between the core of the region and its peripheral area there was provided a case study analyzing the territorial units forming the southern settlement belt along the Novosibirsk-Cherepanovo regional railway line over a distance of approx. 100 km. The presented results have shown the general tendencies in the transformations of the Novosibirsk urban region both in long-term perspective and in contemporary circumstances