Constructing a Visual Narrative: The UCSB Emigrants Mapping Project

By Dana Solomon, Emigrants Project

    Within the field of literature, the contemporary moment is marked by what appears to be the beginning of a significant shift in methodology; whereas previously, researchers in different fields may have worked independently, there is an increasing demand for research founded upon interdisciplinary collaboration.  With regard to the study of literature, there has been a rise in the utilization of advanced computer technologies for the purpose of literary analysis. 

    Literary scholars, once limited to more traditional methods of close reading, find in the contemporary academy, various tools and applications capable of expanding upon conventional tools of literary investigation.  For example, in the past, a literary scholar may have manually counted the occurrence of a given word, in hopes of illuminating a work's greater meaning.  In the present moment, however, one defined by the ubiquity of technological resources, such a scholar need only utilize a "concordance" tool, a computer application capable of examining the frequency of a given word within a digital version of a text, or corpus of texts.  Similarly, an individual concerned with the geographical and chronological movement of characters within a text such as W. G. Sebald's The Emigrants, may have previously constructed some kind of timeline to later compare with several maps, atlases, etc.  Once again, however, the digital academy has provided a more efficient and powerful method of achieving the same goals.

    Within the context of UCSB's English 149 class, taught by Dr. Alan Liu, students are given the opportunity to collaborate with one another in an effort to create models of literary texts that take advantage of the previously discussed kinds of tools.  The class is comprised of two main parts.  The first section of the class acquaints students with the various theories and concepts that undergird the above-mentioned shift in methodology.  The second part of the course grants students the ability to work in class on their projects, ensuring a high level of collaboration and intergroup interaction.  The focus of this paper deals with the result of one group's project in particular, referred to from here on as "The Emigrants mapping project." 

    The Emigrants mapping project is, essentially, a "Google Lit. Trip." Originally developed by English teacher Jerome Burg, "Google Lit. Trips" is an online collection of downloadable map files and suggestions to help individuals or groups interpret works of literature visually.  The database exists to aid individuals in constructing visual interpretations of literary itineraries within the environment of "Google Earth," a program that will be discussed in more detail momentarily.  The Emigrants mapping project's goal was to construct a visual narrative, using a variety of software tools, that would correspond to the movement of characters within W. G. Sebald's The Emigrants, a novel that is heavily invested in mobility and travel. 

    By examining the features and functional characteristics of The Emigrants mapping project, as well as the concept and general philosophy behind the research, it is evident that this exercise in literary mapping provides a new method for interpreting a given text.  Further, such an interpretation is capable of interacting with and representing the literary time-space relationship in a new way, thus making it possible to simplify and elucidate texts that may have, in the past, more thoroughly resisted traditional literary analysis and understanding. 

    Before delving into the specific structural components and overall significance of the project, it is first necessary to briefly introduce the text that inspired such an intensive exercise in modeling.  Written in 1996, by German author, W. G. Sebald, The Emigrants tells the stories of four individuals, all deeply affected by a variety of historical events including both World Wars.  Although rich with historical and cultural information, the most significant aspect of the text, for the purposes of the mapping project, is its deep interest in mobility; each of the four chapters involves lengthy descriptions of each character's respective travels and migrations.  The Emigrants mapping project saw in the text's almost overwhelming mobility, an opportunity to reconstruct these four narratives visually, in a manner that would more easily lend itself to literary investigation; thus, the utilization of "Google Earth." 

    "Google Earth" is the application that forms the foundation of The Emigrants mapping project.  Essentially, it is a software program that allows users to navigate through a collection of satellite images of the planet Earth using a customizable, globe-based interface.  The images are provided by a variety of organizations including NASA.

    The software allows users to click various navigation buttons to rotate the globe or zoom in on specific locations.  By inputting the name of a city, state, country, or continent, users can view a more detailed portion of the globe.  In addition to these parameters, it is also possible to search for locations using latitude and longitude coordinates.  

    In addition to the basic search feature, "Google Earth" also contains all of the directions and route-planning tools found on its sister site, "Google Maps."  Users can either input "To" and "From" locations in the directions search bar or navigate to the "Start" point on the globe, right click the location, and select "Get directions from here."  Once the "Start" and "Destination" locations have been input, the program draws up a route, providing step by step directions as well as offering users a visual representation of the route in the "Google Earth" browser window.

    The program is available in three versions that can be downloaded from its website.  The basic version is free to the public and intended for personal use.  The two premium versions, available for a fee, contain the same satellite images but include an additional set of tools that give commercial users the ability to create video and audio files using self-imported geographical data.  All three versions contain three-dimensional overlays that can be turned on and off in the preferences menu or the browser's sidebar.  These 3D overlays range from buildings and cultural landmarks to geographical features like the Matterhorn in Switzerland, and can be used to provide useful visual-models of geological features alluded to in the novel.

    "Google Earth's" wide array of tools and customizable features makes it possible to translate a work of fiction into a file that can be downloaded and distributed among a group of interested individuals.  For this project in particular, the ability to add "placemarks" to relevant locations, and subsequently create detailed routes to other points is incredibly useful.  Further, the way that project members can create annotations or location specific "footnotes" along a route is a powerful capability.  Finally, the capacity to customize the color, opacity, and thickness of route-marking lines makes it possible to separate and organize paths based on characteristics like temporal context and nature of travel.  These functional characteristics are elaborated on below. 

    In terms of navigation, The Emigrants mapping project makes use of several of "Google Earth's" capabilities.  First, because the downloadable ".kml file," or the group's map file, already contains all of the (previously input) relevant locations within a given chapter, it automatically opens and displays the names of places in the browser window's sidebar.  Thus, the user is granted the freedom to explore the text as he or she pleases.  If, for example, the user wishes to study the geographic landmarks referred to in relation to one city, out of the dozen or so mentioned in a chapter, he or she need only double-click the name of the location in the sidebar.  Upon double-clicking the place name, the browser window flies to said location, automatically bringing up any previously programmed, supplemental information.  In addition to this non-linear mode of navigation, particularly fitting given the almost random barrage of cities and towns present in each chapter, the team also constructed a more linear, chronological method of negotiating the digital terrain. 

    The ability to add an infinite amount of location-based, complementary material to each place mark, a feature that will be addressed following this discussion of navigation, afforded the group the opportunity to include brief instructions within the context of each point on the map.  For example, when the user double-clicks on "Location # 5," the last line of supplemental material points him or her in the direction of the next place mark, i.e. "Proceed to # 6!"  This additional, optional means of navigating through the points on the map almost creates the structure of a hypertext, transporting the user from one point on the map, to the next, via links.  The final means of traversing the wide array of locations listed in the sidebar involves an automated tour, a feature of The Emigrants mapping project that allows users to more passively "watch" the movement within the text occur independently.  By simply clicking on the first location and pressing the "play" button located in the sidebar, the browser window will automatically "fly" from the first location to the second, and so on.

    The three varieties of navigation found in The Emigrants mapping project each contribute to a more thorough understanding of Sebald's novel.  The first method, involving the freestyle, random exploration of the map, allows the user to concentrate on any specific area of interest, making this mode of exploration particularly useful for independent research.  Further, it allows the user/reader, the opportunity to examine, in far greater detail, locations that are only briefly mentioned in the text; more specifically, the user can explore "extradiegetic" locations, or towns and cities that exist outside the primary narrative, often mentioned only in passing. 

    The second navigation technique, utilizing the group's inclusion of quasi-hypertextual markers, grants the user the ability to restructure the characters' journeys in chronological order, moving from a given starting point to a final destination.  This method, by far the most radical in terms of reorganizing the novel's structure, grants the reader a level of clarity previously unavailable.  Without this chronological reordering, the project would do significantly less in terms of creating a more accessible, easily understood model of the text. 

    Thus, The Emigrants mapping project not only offers a model of Sebald's novel, but it also provides a restructured interpretation of the text, one that allows users to concentrate on either a specific area, or the text as a whole, at their own pace.  In addition to the various methods of navigation, other aspects of the project's design, particularly the incorporation of images, quotations, and links to other multimedia, contribute to new interpretations and understandings of the novel. 

    Inspired by suggestions from the "Google Lit. Trips" website, the project contains a multitude of photographs and other images that work to contextualize the location to which they relate.  These photographs, many scanned from the text itself, provide a second layer of historical and geographical contextualization; essentially, the photographs, like the map itself, work to offer the reader a visual representation of events or places mentioned in the text. 

    For example, in the "Paul Bereyter" section of the novel, the narrator describes Paul's enlistment in the German military, particularly his experience in Poland.  Upon double-clicking on "Poland," multiple images zoom into focus, offering a visual depiction of the invasion and subsequent destruction of the city during World War II.  This kind of photographic contextualization results in a completely different understanding of the character's experiences in this particular locale.  Beyond the more noticeable additions to the project's landscape, such as the above-mentioned photographs, the map also contains subtler details that nonetheless manage to convey important information.

    Between each pair of locations on the map runs a path, or line, that marks the route of a given character's journey.  By decoding the data inherent in each of these colored paths, the user is able to discover important details regarding each character's movement.  On The Emigrants mapping project's team webpage, there is a key that explains the significance of each line's color, opacity (transparency), and width.  For instance, the width of the line indicates the mode of transportation used, i.e. train, plane, car, etc., while the color of the path specifies which character traveled along this route.  The lines' opacity, varying from solid to almost transparent, signifies the time period during which the trip was made.  More precisely, the transparency of the line correlates with the recency of the excursion.  To illustrate, a solid line represents an expedition that occurred relatively recently, within the last decade or two, while a fainter line suggests a journey that precedes the contemporary moment.  It is worth mentioning that because the text itself is a recollection of past events, none of the lines possess an opacity of 100 percent (fully solid).  

    The team's use of "Google Earth's" ability to customize the color, opacity, and thickness of route-marking lines makes it possible to both represent and reconcile the two, often mutually exclusive, dimensions of time and space.  In the past, literary modeling has typically privileged one over the other, previously limited by older technology's inability to simultaneously depict both the temporal and spatial aspects of a text, especially one as non-linear as Sebald's The Emigrants. 

    This project's ability to visually represent an intact time-space relationship grants users/readers an all-encompassing, aerial view of the text, one that is greater than its individual parts, i.e. maps, timelines, etc. Such an ability also places the project itself within a unique location in the framework of humanities computing and literary modeling.  This project leaves the door open for similar literary investigations, especially those concerned with deconstructing difficult texts that rely on obscurantist structures, and non-linear narratives to confuse readers' perceptions.  Although the project maintains a library of tools designed to simplify and visually represent complex literary texts, its foundations are rooted in traditional close reading; its aim was to produce a map that complements conventional methods of literary analysis, not a map that supercedes or replaces these "originary" strategies.  

Resources for Further Study

Brown, Martin C. Hacking GoogleMaps and GoogleEarth.  Indianapolis: Wiley, 2006.

Google Earth.  Google Incorporated. 20 February 2008 <http://www.earth.google.com>

Purvis, Michael.  Beginning Google Maps Applications with PHP and Ajax: From Novice to Professional.  Berkeley: Apress, 2006.

Scharl, Arno. The Geospatial Web: How Geobrowsers, Social Software and the Web 2.0 are Shaping the Network Society.  New York: Springer, 2007.

Turnbull, James.  Off the Map: The Most Amazing Sights on Earth as Seen by Satellite.  San Francisco: Avalon, 2006.