Here are a couple of projects for grad students in the digital humanities and new media. They’re things I’d like to do. Here goes:

When I read Henry Beston, I really have no idea of the landscape he’s talking about. He covers all kinds of issues: animal migrations, the intricacy of weather systems, and nuance of place change. This all needs to be mapped as an accompaniment to the text: where was he when he saw the spiders? I think this is all under water now?

A much larger project has to do with visualizing history in terms of maps from the point of view of search and place modeling. It’s a simple concept that would probably involve major money and time. Let’s say I go to a map search on the web and type in Battle of Manassas or Battle of Bull Run (depending on what part of the country you’re from). I should be able to go there and study it from angles or versions of choice, but the trick is that everything else has to be there too: the map “follows” the search into the past as a totality of the world, hence a true simulacrum. Likewise Rome, Greece, whatever. Small parts of this should be possible, even more possible with greater computer power on the way. This would be a synthesis of almost every academic discipline.

Another project could just be to GIS out Tolkien’s world. That would be fun.