Exploring Historical Spaces with Boston College

History is all around us, weaving the web of our present lives. But how can we begin to unravel what this means? To follow a historical thread is to trace the past into the present. Through technology, we can begin this work in understanding historical objects and spaces through digital recreations and innovative technologies. 

Within academic scholarship, there are many ways to go about representing the past, ranging from traditional historical approaches to more creative historiographical approaches. In the former, historians aim to have the historical artifacts speak for themselves. In the latter, scholars aim to immerse the public in historically-informed experiences to understand the past. For this digital humanities project, our interdisciplinary team of collaborators has elected to adopt more creative methodologies to provide students with an experiential understanding of historical space. 

This website hosts several creative explorations of time and space across the disciplines of history and English literature created by Boston College doctoral students. These collected digital projects are intended for educational purposes and include related lesson plans for accessing the past in your own classroom. 

Love Cults, Masquerading Gals, and Subway Sammies

Skill(s):

Deep Reading; Data Analysis; Spatial Analysis

Tool(s):

Tableau; Datawrapper; ArcGIS; StoryMaps

This page shows how the Boston City Archives was utilized as a resource for locating blueprints of apartment buildings situated in Back Bay, Beacon Hill, and the South End. These three neighborhoods served as residences, gathering places, and sources of community for gay men and transgender women, as well as other queer and gender non-conforming individuals in Boston. By employing Adobe Illustrator, I have transformed century-old blueprints into more easily understandable and accessible layouts. This will allow students and teachers to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the unique challenges and circumstances faced by gay men and transgender women residing in different areas of Boston.

The Silent Spring Soundscape: Lessons in Listening to the Land

Skill(s):

Sound Spaces; Spatial Analysis; Audio

Tool(s):

Tableau; Datawrapper; ArcGIS; StoryMaps

The Silent Spring Soundscape: Lessons in Listening to the Land combines immersive field recordings in environmental soundscapes, ArcGIS interactive mapping, and interactive lesson plans for the high school or college classroom to tell the history of Carson's work and to learn to read the environmental silences in texts.

Saida: Urban History through Inscriptions

Level(s):

Building; City

Tool(s):

StoryMaps; 3d modeling

In this program, the group has set-up an in-class learning session focused on learning the vocabulary and basic operations of a letterpress (also known as "common") press. By interacting with a vocabulary list, a thorough step-by-step set of instructions, and a labeled printing press, participants will brief window into the technologies that have helped to disseminate information for centuries.
Shortly to follow, the group will put a lesson plan focused on how to create wood block designs in Adobe Illustrator for use either as stamps or in combination with the press.