Not everything came up roses in my dive into historical data visualization. For instance, some visualizations broke. The image on the left tells me nothing about the number of emigrants to Algeria from specific departments in France as expected. It was also very difficult to upload a custom map in…
Colonialism Through the Veil Posts
This is my first foray into data visualization as a historian, and I’ve been pleasantly surprised. Of course, as a mathematician, I know that visualizing data can be a powerful way to explore it. However, as a historian, I have to admit, I was a little skeptical. I thought it…
Settler Colonialism in the US and French Algeria: A Comparative Overview
Posted in Percolating Ideas
I am not the first to make the remarkable comparison between the colonization of French Algeria and that of United States’ territories. Rather, mid-nineteenth century French statesmen conscientiously used the United States as a benchmark of progress in their Algerian endeavor. This may account for at least some of the…
Mathematics and the Humanities: Bridging the Divide
Posted in Digital Humanities, and Percolating Ideas
First of all, I love this image. Let me tell you why (and how it relates to this post)… It provides a wonderful pictorial representation of where we now stand – at the edge of a precipice with nothing but a flimsy rope bridge to reach the other side. On…
Settling into my new home(s)
Posted in Digital Humanities, and News and Notes
Nearly a year later, I am finally setting up my new Omeka site. It’s been an eventful year! In December 2014, I interviewed for and accepted a position as a Digital Scholarship Librarian at the Claremont Colleges Library. You can see slides from my interview presentation on trends in digital…
AHA Roundtable Presentation Ashley Sanders, Ph.D. Digital Scholarship Librarian, Claremont Colleges New York City, January 2, 2015 In an animated discussion with other graduate students gathered around a homemade dinner in Aix-en-Provence, I discovered that I was not wandering alone in the darkness as I sought out methods to search the archives…
A home of my own
Posted in Digital Humanities, and News and Notes
I just wanted to provide a brief update and announcement: The first stage of my project, Settler Colonialism Uncovered, will be moving from the server at Michigan State University. I will forever be grateful to MATRIX and the Cultural Heritage Informatics Initiative for the training and first digital home they…
What would a map of French colonial Algeria or the American Midwest look like if we took a humanistic epistemological approach? How would such a map change if it took into consideration the humanistic notion that space is a construct influenced by perception (of travel times, of fear, of violence,…
How scholars define the Digital Humanities is as ongoing and fraught conversation. Here I offer a simple working definition to continue the conversation about its definition and present my own approach to the field. It is not meant to be exhaustive or all-encompassing. Please share what you believe to be…
“Settlers are not born. They are made in the dispossessing, a ceaseless obligation that has to be maintained across the generations if the Natives are not to come back.” — Patrick Wolfe.[1] In this post, I examine how American colonists became settlers through the process of invoking their perceived sovereignty…