MobyDick Fusion Table Commentary

[I was unable to load this onto Github last week (3/8) and I forgot to send it to Josh along with my images / URLs. Here’s the commentary I wrote on the assignment.]

This is a really neat program and procedure. I could imagine myself using it for my Olympic artist addresses, among other things. To reflect on the limitations: it does seem as though the visualization options are a little limited for now, I suppose. Even if I had the coding skills to overlay a different map, it would be useful to be able to customize the points / heatmap-circles as well. Even allowing for varied colors with a key would be useful, to distinguish (in this case) different kinds of geographical references. And there isn’t an obvious way to alter the mapping choices made by the Google GIS. This is a particular map projection with particular biases, and it would be hard to imagine attempting the variations, corrections, or subjective distortions imagined by Bodenhamer’s “postmodern scholarship,” however much these might be useful inflections for conveying the experience of the novel or other experiences particular to Melville and his era.

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