Early Modern Digital Itineraries: Workshops for a Data-Driven Approach to Premodern Travel

FAIN: HAA-293210-23

Virginia Tech (Blacksburg, VA 24061-2000)
Rachel Midura (Project Director: January 2023 to present)

A series of workshops for digital humanities scholars of early modern Europe to establish a professional network of researchers on premodern digital, spatial history and explore how geographical information found in primary sources such as letters and journal can be extracted and mapped to trace the movement of people and goods. 

We propose a Level 1 grant to support three workshops and a conference October 2023-September 2024. An expert advisory board and diverse cohort of participants will build upon a shared foundation: the EmDigIt database of itineraries. Listed routes structured navigation of space from antiquity through the eighteenth century, yet have rarely been studied, nor visualized for a wider public. The database transforms 86 itineraries printed between 1545-1761 in English, Italian, French, German, Spanish and Polish languages into structured data for the first time. Participants will collaborate on research questions using the EmDigIt data over the course of the year. A final meeting in summer 2024 will take place in conjunction with the Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations DH Conference in Washington D.C. A public white paper will provide a state-of-the-field of digital, spatial history and blueprint for an EmDigIt web platform.