The reading “Potential of Spatial Humanities” was on the notion of space and its significance within the humanities. The author tries to challenge the reader to really consider the role space plays when analyzing certain historical events. For example, the author mentions the imortance of space to the American Indians when they protested that the “vast open spaces of the New World were not wilderness but their home”. In order to aid in better understanding space, the Geographic Information System (GIS) technology was developed which allows the user to visual the spacial context and physical environment of a location like a map. It can cosntruct really nice images and has a lot of features to it, however, it is also limited by the fact that it is a computer and computers don’t think like humanists.

In my opinion, I thought the reading was a bit confusing at first. I was lost as to why at one point the author talked about geography and space then swicthed to literature and space then back again to geography. The author included a wide number of fields in which space was important which I thought was good because it gave an overall feel of how space is used within those different fields, but also there was a lot of jumping around between those fields which got kind of confusing for me. I did like however, how the author mentions both the advantages and disadvantages of using technology. It seems like there is a lot of back and forth argument on this topic, but in the end I guess you can’t really have it all. I agree that technologies like GIS give an amazing graphic scene of for example an ancient town in history which the user can traverse through and learn more about. However, it only provides a very limited view of that town…a view which is based on data that it was given. Yet, if you’re trying to gather more information about the town which is not already there it may be quite difficult since the graphic itself is based on the perspective of the observer. I think the author did a nice job in motivating the potential for space in humanities but I still think there seems to be debate about it and its importance. This reading did make me realize though just how useful space can be when analyzing history or literature or any other field. It opened my mind to a new topic that I honestly don’t think I would have thought of before.