Ninth International Conference on The Constructed Environment

Abstract

This project documents efforts to develop a tool to machine read texts and automate the process of mapping the spaces represented in literary works to real time maps of them. The goal is a tool that will finally allow those who work with the transformations of real spaces (urbanists, cultural geographers, and others) and imaginary projections of real spaces (students of cultural studies and literature and film) to see exactly how real spatial transformations mediate cultural production. The project tests the efficacity of the tool by mapping the works of Juan Madrid. Over a span of almost forty years this author penned more than thirty narrative texts inextricably bound up in the transformations of the city of that period of time. In addition to what new information can be specifically gleaned about the author’s texts from information that the mapping tool reveals, if provides a useful prototype for other scholars. It will allow then to map the work of other authors, in Spain and around the globe. Sharing this information has powerful research and pedagogical implications including the ability to facilitate the production of interactive digital editions of many works.