European Summer University in Digital Humanities
Université Marie et Louis Pasteur, Besançon, France
21.7-2.8.2025
36 contact hours total
Workshop Overview
This spatial humanities workshop will introduce participants to different ways of thinking about humanities data, their curation within projects, and their use in digital mapping environments. The workshop will not be a traditional course in Geographic Information Systems (GIS), although we will use open source GIS and web mapping along the way.
The workshop is designed for the total beginner who would like:
- to explore how a spatial dimension can enrich humanities and interdisciplinary research projects and
- to learn some fundamental skills for collecting and organizing data in order to be able to integrate such methods into their research workflows.
Drawing inspiration from the location of the ESU in the historical center of Besançon, participants will gather data from within the city and will work with data from local cultural institutions. The workshop will also introduce students to ways in which machine learning and generative artificial intelligence are opening up new horizons for spatial humanities research.
Preparation for the Workshop
Details for accounts to make and pre-workshop downloads can be found here
Workshop Goals
There are four main goals of the workshop:
- to learn where we might obtain spatial data relevant to our research interests, or capture data from analog sources through digitization,
- to explore modeling data for a research project having a spatial dimension,
- to practice different ways that we can tell a story by visualizing spatial data, and
- to learn ways that we can disseminate and share that data.
Background
Participants are encouraged to explore existing spatial humanities scholarship to understand the full scope and possibilities of the field. For each module below, we will provide some pre-reading and some follow up materials. A Zotero library of supplementary readings is available here. No prior experience with GIS or mapping is expected. Please request access for editing rights.
Workshop Agenda
In the first part of the workshop we conduct a critical review of a range of spatial humanities projects: their scope and the rhetorical strategies they employ for spatial storytelling and argument. We will begin by reflecting on how location-based research might be incorporated into research projects in different disciplines (cinema, art history, anthropology, history, literature, etc.) as well as the challenges of incorporating a spatial dimension into participants’ research.
We will learn about the creation of data in formats relevant to spatial humanities projects (using gazetteers, mobile data collection, off-the-shelf software) as well as some basic querying in order to perform repetitive tasks for building a spatial dataset. Students will be introduced to normalization and wrangling techniques and will contrast the manual, slow creation of data with more automated forms of analysis.
Week 1: Data Creation to Map Visualization
- Fundamentals of spatial data creation and visualization.
- Introduction to spatial thinking in humanities research
1a. Introduction to Spatial Humanities
Tuesday 22 July 2025, 1100-1230
Overview
- Two terms: “Humanities” Data and “Mapping Environments”
- Introduction to the course and course infrastructure
- Challenges and opportunities in spatial research
- Getting to know the workshop participants
Pre-reading
- Wilson, Matthew W. 2019. Mapping. In Digital Geographies. James Ash, Rob Kitchin, and Agnieszka Leszczynski, eds. Sage Publications. pp. 49-59.
Slides
Exercises
- Class Introductions
Additional References
- Murrieta-Flores, Patricia and Bruno Martins. 2019. “The Geospatial Humanities: Past, Present and Future”. IJGIS 33(12).
- Brunn, Stanley D. and Martin Dodge. 2017. What is Where? The Role of Map Representations and Mapping Practices in Advancing Scholarship. In Mapping Across Academia. Springer.
2a. Modeling Spatial Data for the Humanities
Tuesday 22 July 2025, 1430-1600
Overview
- Incorporating spatial dimensions across disciplines: cinema, art history, anthropology, history, literature
- Understanding different data formats and sources
- Creating spatial data for humanities projects
Pre-reading
- What is Spatial Data?
- Broman, Karl W. and Kara H. Woo. 2018. Data Organization in Spreadsheets. In The American Statistician, 72(1), 2–10.
- Guldi, Jo. “What is the Spatial Turn?”. Scholars’ Lab.
- White, Richard. “What is Spatial History?”. Stanford Spatial History Project.
Exercises
- Modeling Spatial Data
- Brainstorming for Mappable details in Besançon
Additional References
- Lincoln, Matthew. 2020. “Tidy Data for the Humanities”.
- Sinton, Diana S. “Mapping”. Digital Pedagogy in the Humanities.
3a. Critical Review of Projects
Wednesday 23 July 2025, 0900-1030
Overview
- Exploring interdisciplinary project examples
- Analyzing scope and rhetorical strategies in existing spatial humanities projects
- Understanding different approaches to spatial storytelling
Pre-reading
- Joyeux-Prunel, Béatrice. 2013. “Introduction: Do Maps Lie?”. Artl@s Bulletin 2 (2): Article 1.
- Mullen, Lincoln, “Map Literacy”
Exercises
Additional References
- “ArcGIS Story Maps Tutorial”. YouTube.
- “How to Create a Story Map”. YouTube.
- “Introduction to Knight Lab’s StoryMap”. YouTube
- ExifTool: Read, Write and Edit Meta Information!
4a. Semantic annotation with Recogito and Visualizing Spatial Data With Kepler
Wednesday 23 July 2025, 1050-1220
Pre-reading
- Simon, Rainer, Elton Barker, Leif Isaksen and Pau de Soto Cañamares. 2015. “Linking Early Geospatial Documents, One Place at a Time : Annotation of Geographic Documents with Recogito”. e-Perimetron 10 (2): 49–59.
- 10 Minute Tutorial: A Quick Introduction to Recogito. Pelagios Commons Also in DE, ES, FA, IT, NL and TK.
- Who was Charles Weiss? EN FR
Exercises
Additional References
- “Semantic Annotation without the Pointy Brackets – An Introduction to Recogito”. YouTube.
- Frontini, Francesca, Amaury Roth-Boll and Maria Susana Seguin. 2024. “Cartographie d’une aventure: approche numérique du Journal d’un voyage fait aux Indes orientales de Robert Challe”. In Robert Challe et l’aventure. Paris: Classiques Garnier. 247-275.
5a. GitHub, GitHub Desktop, Markdown and GitHub Pages
Wednesday 23 July 2025, 1430-1600
Overview
- Gentle Introduction to GitHub and Versioning
- Authoring in Markdown
- Hosting In GitHub Pages
Pre-reading
Exercises
- Authoring in Markdown and GitHub Pages
- Inserting an iframe (a map) into GitHub Pages
Additional References
- Minimal Computing and Static Sites
- NYU Libraries. Web Design and Minimal Computing
- Sayers, Jentery. 2016. “Minimal Definitions” GO::DH
- Risam, Roopika and Alex Gil. 2022. “The Questions of Minimal Computing”. DHQ 16.
6a. GitHub, GitHub Desktop, Markdown and GitHub Pages (continued)
Thursday 24 July 2025, 1630-1830
7a. Map Visualization
Thursday 24 July 2025, 1050-1220
Overview
- An introduction to two ways of visualizing data using web-based tools
- Visualizing a webmap in GitHub pages
Pre-reading
- “Palladio 3 - Data Visualization”. YouTube.
- “React Geospatial Visualization with kepler.gl”. YouTube.
Slides
Exercises
- Creating Point-to-Point Map with Kepler or Palladio
- Export html from Kepler & visualizing in GitHub
Additional References
- Conroy, Melanie. “Networks, Maps and Time: Visualizing Historical Networks Using Palladio, DHQ
- Humanities + Design Lab. “Palladio”. Stanford University.
- Kepler.gl Documentation Team. “User Guides”.
- Muggah, Robert. 2020. “Why Maps Are Important in Our Response to the Covid-19 Pandemic”. The Print.
- Alves, Daniel. “Spatial Humanities in History and Literature”. YouTube.
- Wrisley, David Joseph. 2017. “Locating Medieval French, or Why We Collect and Visualize the Geographic Information from Texts?”. Speculum 92 (S1): S145–S169.
8a. Intro to QGIS
Thursday 24 July 2025, 1430-1600
Overview
- Using an free and open-source standalone GIS software
- Creating Maps for Print Publications
- Transforming a standalone map into a webmap with leaflet.js
Pre-reading
Slides
Exercises
- Exporting map with QGIS2Web
Additional References
- QGIS Curriculum (with localizations)
- Kretzschmar Jr., William A. 2013. “GIS for Language and Literary Study”. Digital Literary Studies Anthology.
- Harvard Center for Geographic Analysis, Creating Maps with QGIS. 2023
- QGIS Tutorials and Tips. “QGIS Tutorials and Tips”.
- QGIS is the Mapping Software You Didn’t Know You Needed
- Russell, John E. and Merinda Kaye Hensley, Beyond Buttonology: Digital humanities, digital pedagogy, and the ACRL Framework, College and Research Library News
Homework
- Take five photos for our Rorschach Chailluz mapping project. Make sure that location services (GPS) is activated for your camera. Use the exif.tools link below to spot check that they include geographic coordinates.
9a. Intro to QGIS (continued)
Friday 25 July 2025, 0900-1030
Exercises
- Exploring EXIF data
- collective data sheet
- Visualizing workshop datasets (Recogito, Besançon photos) or open data from Le portail de la donnée et de la connaissance en Bourgogne-Franche-Comté and SQL
- Open Data BFC Immeubles protégés au titre des Monuments Historiques
10a. Visit to Bibliothèque d’étude et de conservation
Friday 25 July 2025, 1050-1220
Overview
- In this session we will meet at the Bibliothèque d’étude et de conservation, meet with some of the conservators and view some distinctive collections.
Additional References
- Bibliothèque municipale de Besançon EN FR
- Mémoire vive : Patrimoine numérisé de Besançon
11a. Agent-based (re)coding of maps.
Friday 25 July 2025, 1430-1600
Overview
- Examining the Component Parts of a webmap
- Transforming a Leaflet.js map with GitHub Co-Pilot and Claude Sonnet 4.
- Contrasting manual data creation with automated forms of analysis
Pre-reading
- Introducing VS Code Copilot Chat Agent Mode
- Vibe Coding: AI-Assisted Coding for Non-Developers, Niall McNulty
- Vibe Coding - MIT Technology Review https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/04/16/1115135/what-is-vibe-coding-exactly/
Slides
Exercises
- Examining the parts of a kepler-created html map and a QGIS2Web-created leaflet.js map
- Create a new page and style a map gallery in GitHub pages
Additional References
- Intro, Critical Making in the Age of AI, Emily Johnson and Anastasia Salter
- “The Limits of Computation,” David M. Berry
Week 2: Visualization and Advanced Techniques
In the second part of the course, we will learn some skills in static site development so that we can host our own basic web maps. We will experiment with other automated workflows and will turn to more complex forms of visualization and storytelling. Open-source GIS software will be used to learn about georeferencing / warping and the creation of historical vector / polygon data from digitized historical maps. Depending on the time available and participant interest, we may explore other topics of interest: discipline-specific gazetteers, mapping packages in R, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, maps & IIIF, machine classification of features in historical or series maps, etc.
1b. Recap and OSM
Monday 28 July 2025, 0830-1000
Overview
- Review from Week 1
- Discovering and Using OpenStreetMap
- Assessing Coverage in OSM
Pre-reading
Exercises
- Editing OpenStreetMap using the web-based editor
- Pick a place in the world you know well and test the coverage of OSM
Additional References
- Anderson et al, Corporate Editors in the Evolving Landscape of OpenStreetMap, International Journal of Geo-Information
- Inside the ‘Wikipedia of Maps,’ Tensions Grow Over Corporate Influence (Bloomberg)
- UMap: a resource for hosting open maps
- Humanitarian OSM (HOTOSM)
2b. Querying OSM
Monday 28 July 2025, 1030-1200
Overview
- Querying OSM with Overpass turbo
- Basics of R in Posit Cloud
Exercises
- Testing Overpass Turbo queries with genAI
- Building Maps Based on Extracted OSM data
Additional References
3b. Working with Printed Historical Collections
Monday 28 July 2025, 1400-1530
Overview
- Understanding OCR with printed sources
- Assessing OCR quality (Tesseract, Abbyy Finereader, Google Drive)
Exercises
- Cleaning and Parsing OCR’d text with Tesseract, Abbyy Finereader (demo)
- Cleaning and Parsing OCR’d text with Google Drive (hands on)
- Geocoding (review) & modeling a dataset of historical watchmakers in Besançon
Additional References
- Mähr, Working with Batches of pdfs
- OpenRefine User Manual
- How to Use Google Drive to OCR Arabic Text
4b. Georeferencing historical maps
Tuesday 29 July 2025, 0830-1000
Overview
- Georeferencing Digitized Maps in QGIS
- Warping vs revealing uneven premodern scale
Pre-reading
- Clifford et al, Georeferencing in QGIS 2.0
- Snow, Georeferencing: Moving Analog Maps into Modern-Day GIS
- What is IIIF and how does it work?
Exercises
- Georeferencing selected maps from BM Besançon
- Georeferencing IIIF maps in Allmaps
Additional References
- Bunting Labs, How to Use the QGIS AI Vectorizer for Digitizing Maps
- Camille Lyans Cole, Nora Elizabeth Barakat, Nada Ammagui, David Joseph Wrisley. (2022). “Mapping Tribes: Ottoman Spatial Thinking in Iraq and Arabia, c. 1910” Journal of Ottoman Turkish Studies Association 9.2: 205-242.
- Martin Reckziegel et al, Visual Exploration of Historical Maps, DSH
- Gent Gemapt (in Dutch)
5b. Georeferencing Digitized Maps in QGIS (cont)
Tuesday 29 July 2025, 1030-1200
Overview
- Georeferencing Digitized Maps in QGIS
- Allmaps
Exercises
Additional References
6b. Mapping in an IDE
Tuesday 29 July 2025, 1400-1530
Overview
- Leaflet in R
- A Workflow for Leaflet in R
Pre-reading
Exercises
- Notebook: Leaflet with R
Additional References
7b. Creating Points, Vectors and Polygons from Georeferenced Maps
Thursday 31 July 2025, 0830-1000
Overview
- Vectorization: Tracing polygons or lines in georeferenced maps (sometimes called “digitization” of maps)
- Extracting EXIF data from photographs
Exercises
Additional References
8b. Wikidata and Spatial Data
Tuesday 29 July 2025, 1030-1200
Overview
- Wikidata and spatial data
- EXIF data extraction
Pre-reading
- What is SPARQL?
- What is Wikidata?
- Zhao, A systematic review of Wikidata in Digital Humanities projects, DSH
- Baker & Mahal, “I have always found the whole area a minefield”: Wikidata, historical lives, and knowledge infrastructure, IJDH
Exercises
- Notebook: Querying Wikidata for Geolocated Objects
- Building SPARQL queries with an LLM and Wikidata Query Service
Additional References
- Reconciling Data with OpenRefine in Wikidata
- CFP: Wikidata across the humanities: datasets, methodologies, reuse, JODH
- del Pino & Hogan, Wikidata Atlas: Putting Wikidata on the Map
9b. Final Project Lab
Thursday 31 July 2025, 1400-1530
Overview
- Final Project Lab
Exercises
- Notebook: EXIF data extraction
- Resizing Images in Terminal
- Resolving and Categorizing Annotations
10b. XXXX
Friday 1 August 2025, 0830-1000
Overview
- Tropy for Image Data Management
Pre-reading
Exercises
- Exploring Tropy’s supported Ontologies
- Importing Images and Setting up EXIF data extraction
Additional References
11b. Final Project Assembly
Friday 1 August 2025, 1030-1200
Overview
- Final Project Assembly
Additional References and Resources
- Brooks, Mackenzie K. “Data”. Humanities Data Coursebook.
- Awesome Digital Humanities.
- A package to draw maps for the web https://github.com/riatelab/bertin
- Khartis : Create Thematic Maps in 3 steps https://www.sciencespo.fr/cartographie/khartis/en/
- StorymapJS - Maps that tell stories.
- Reviews in the Digital * CLS Infra (Survey of Methods)
- Dariah Campus
- Humanities Data Fundamentals
- Sharing the Workflow Experience (Dariah Campus)
- Mattingly, Introduction to Python for Humanists
- Arnold & Tilton, Humanities Data in R, Distant Viewing
- Walsh, Introduction to Cultural Analytics and Python
- Orange Data Mining
- DHSI list
- Liste DH
- Mixed Methods
- DH & AI
- Dariah Teach
- Dariah Campus
About this course :
This course is published with GitHub Pages using the Slate theme customized by Claude Sonnet 4 with Co-Pilot.
The course content has been inspired by previous years of spatial humanities teaching at ESUDH in Leipzig and Cluj-Napoca, DHSI in Victoria and Montréal as well as NYU Abu Dhabi. Session 11a was particularly inspired by DH Programming Pedagogy in the Age of AI, DHSI 2025.
Other syllabi of interest include