Mapping the Enlightenment

Reviewed by: Leila Markosian

Review start: February 16, 2024

Site Link: https://mapping-the-enlightenment.org/

Archive Link: https://archive.ph/tyWzz

Data Sources

This project relies on historical data in the form of travel itineraries of Greek-speaking scholars in the 17th and 18th centuries.

Processes

The site creators distilled data from 67 scholars’ travel records and isolated information about the scholars’ origins, destinations, year of travel, and purpose of travel in order to present the map.

Presentation

This project’s data is made visible in the form of interactive and dynamic web maps that represent the networks between intellectual centers in western Europe and their peripheries. The interactive maps can be queried to display networks based on an individual scholar’s travel routes; locations of origin or of destination; and the purpose of each travel datapoint, including educational, religious, professional, and personal reasons. Pop-up windows also allow for users to view the aggregated travel distance of each scholar, as well as the number of travels originating from or destined to locations on the map. Finally, users can also type in keywords to find travel and scholar information about specific topics. The entire project is displayed on a website with an explanatory “Home” page, a “User Guide”, short descriptions of “The Team”, and archived information about a “Workshop” and a “DH2017 Conference Paper”.

Digital Tools Used

To process the data, the project creators used Apache, PostgreSQL, PHP and GeoServer with PostGIS. To create the project site and interactive map, the project creators used HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript.

Languages

The site is available in English, and the map can be viewed in English or Greek.

Review

“Mapping the Enlightenment” seeks to answer the question of “what is enlightenment?” by mapping intellectual networks in western Europe and its peripheries in the 17th and 18th centuries. By analyzing geographic data about the flow of knowledge in the Enlightenment period, the creators of this project aim to to better understand the role that scientific centers (or major cities in western Europe) and their peripheries (extending across the Ottoman Empire) played in the production of knowledge during a formative period in global intellectual history.

This project was created as a collaboration between the University of Athens, the National Archives, and the University College London, and it has received funding from the Research Centre for the Humanities. The project site for “Mapping the Enlightenment” was launched in 2017, and is intended by its creators to live on as an open-source example of “how Digital Humanities, through its interdisciplinary nature of binding together research in humanities with digital technologies, can generate new critical knowledge through the re-interpretation of data that might otherwise be obscured” (Routsis et al, 2017). The project’s creators express hope that, in the future, other researchers will be able to submit data about the Portuguese estrangeirados and Spanish pensionados, thus enriching our understanding of Enlightenment-era intellectual networks across the Ottoman Empire.

The interactive map serves as the focal point of the “Mapping the Enlightenment” project. The map itself is simple, presenting an unmarked, whimsically water-colored map of western Europe and its peripheries. Upon zooming in, country borders and major roads appear. It is unclear if these borders and roads align with the 17th and 18th century geography that the map is concerned with, or if they represent our contemporary conception of the region. Viewers can select alternative display settings, including settings for “current borders”, “world imagery”, “no borders”, “terrain background”, “toner background”, and “dark matter”. The maps for “no borders”, “terrain background”, and “toner background” do not seem to work, instead wielding a blank, gray background. Viewers navigate the map using a sidebar, which allows us to select different scholars, intellectual topics, or travel routes to track on the map. Information is presented in two ways: upon selecting a data filters (which might be a scholar’s name (like “Cyril”), a purpose (like “political activity”) or an origin or destination location (like “Thessaly”), we will see a group of directional lines (→) and a table presenting the mapped data. Upon hovering over a line, a pop-up window with metadata will appear to tell us the “From”, “To”, “Year”, “Name”, and “Purpose” of the related travel. The layout of the map is unfortunately clumsy and difficult to navigate. First of all, when the data table appears, it obscures the map and requires the user to drag the map around behind the table until the arrows are visible. In this sense, the modes of information presentation are at odds with one another. Although the data display is cumulative (which is helpful when researching how multiple intellectual “purposes” or scholars intersected), the stacking up of data tables makes it difficult to view the map. Secondly, the map is not scaled to fit a typical computer screen. Much dragging around and rearranging of one’s browser window is needed to use this map, which may discourage widespread scholarly use. One successful element of the project can be found in the navigation sidebar, where users can elect to view an animated timeline of the travel routes mapped. This feature allows us to understand the dynamic and geographically diffuse evolution of Enlightenment thought between 1659 and 1860. As a general educational tool, the project is overwhelming: the navigation instructions in the “User Guide” are dense, and likely require pointed queries or research questions in order to be useful. However, if the project’s goal is to “decenter the established image of the Enlightenment”, then this site offers a useful alternative for scholars and researchers with specific queries and reasons for using the site (Routsis et al, 2017).

How does this project address information?
In terms of gathering information, this project involves a vast amount of data in its scope. Rather than create new datapoints, the project takes existing data about Enlightenment scholars — their travel routes, timelines, reasons for movement — and turns this into information for the map. The project combines a lot of information in order to present a history of intellectual history, and attempts to make this information available to those with a clear, designated research purpose.

How well does this project handle information?
Although this project involves an overwhelming amount of information, the presentation of new information is likely useful to scholars researching the evolution and spread of Enlightenment thought. The information presented through “Mapping the Enlightenment” is easily distilled, sorted, and compared; however, without focused, guiding research questions, visitors to the site are likely to feel inundated by data.