This week's readings included the last section of Moretti's Graphs, Maps, and Trees, as well as the "Places" and "Things" chapters in The Emergence of the Digital Humanities.
I went into Moretti's "Trees" chapter feeling a little skeptical about applying trees to different genres of literature. However, after I got into it and understood what he was trying to do, I began to like this approach. Admittedly, using a tree to explain that history of every literary genre would not be possible. But, I think that evolutionary trees could be a really effective and clear way to show the growth and development of some genres. Moretti focuses on the evolution of the detective mystery story. I think it would be interesting to see a tree showing the evolution of fantasy or horror novels.
The readings from The Emergence of the Digital Humanities for this week are just as interesting as the ones we have previously read. In “Places” Jones spends a good deal of time discussing GPS mapping in the “real” world as well as the role of “digital places,” specifically in novels like Ready Player One and in games like Skyrim and The Legend of Zelda. I was thinking about Moretti’s “Maps” chapter as I was reading, and eventually Jones references Moretti’s work and his ideas about using maps chapter seems to take Moretti’s idea to the next level. Instead of simply mapping out places within literary texts, Jones focuses his discussion on digital and online mapping. For me, the most interesting point that Jones makes is that every model of the world, “is constructed, a representation, open to interpretation” (113). With this thought in mind, is it possible to create an objective map? Or will any map, whether or fictional or real places, reflect biases, assumptions, beliefs of the creator?
Work Cited
Jones, Steven E. The Emergence of the Digital Humanities.
Routledge, 2014.
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