The Emigrants Project
The project
This is a map of The Emigrants by W. G. Sebald viewable with Google Earth, a free program for navigating a detailed satellite-image map of the world. It is a Google Lit Trip: a set of "markers" with information about places in the text and connections between those markers.
Download the files
Dr Henry Selwyn (Britta)
Paul Bereyter (Dana)
Ambros Adelwarth (Brianna)
Max Ferber (Gabe)
Instructions
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Screenshots
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The book
The Emigrants by W. G. Sebald is four extensive narratives of Germans in exile. As each character has some kind of interaction with the narrator (who may or may not be Sebald), the narrator recounts the character's emigration travels in detail while including black and white photographs.
Dr Henry Selwyn: The narrator begins in England, checking out an old house where he meets Dr Henry Selwyn, an odd hermit. The narrator moves into the hous and one evening Selwyn's friend visits and the two gentlemen show slides of their travels. Selwyn tells of a friend he had in Switzerland who disappeared, and later he tells the narrator his emigration story. Months later the narrator learns that Selwyn has killed himself, and years later he narrator notices an article in a newspaper that says the remains of Selwyn's Swiss friend have been found.
Paul Bereyter: This narrative focuses on the narrator's memories of his recently deceased primary school teacher, Paul Bereyter. The narrative follows the deceased teacher's movements around Europe during the years leading up to, and during the Third Reich.
Ambros Adelwarth: Sebald's vague memory of his uncle leads him to inquire about his life. Through the memories of Sebald's Aunt Fini, Uncle Kasimir, as well as Ambros's own pocket diary, Sebald learns of his eccentric relative and the many travels he made after fleeing his native land of Germany.
Max Ferber: The narrator meets Max Ferber when he decides to go study in the city of Manchester. Here he runs into the middle-aged Max, a war veteran. While admiring Max's work as a painter, the narrator befriends him and learns of his travels.
Why?
Better understanding of the book's context
Not everyone is familiar with Germany or Europe and a map gives them a better idea of the setting of the novel
Visualizing distance and geographical data
There are many characters and destinations, it would be easier to visualize their travels through an actual map
Better appreciation for how far the narrator and characters traveled
Because the characters do so much traveling, we would get a better appreciation of how far they have gone
Illustrating the experiences of the characters
Bringing book to a wider audience via distribution on Google Lit Trips website
Challenges
Representing time along with space
Multiple layers of travel
Reductionism: we're leaving out all the themes and symbols (or are we?)
Integrating some of the complexity of the book into the map
The book is about culture and people, not just moving from place to place
Some of the places might not exist anymore, or we might not be able to find them on the map
Political maps may have been different when the book's events took place
Research
Britta
Annotated Bibliography: "Screencasting Strategies", two chapters of Understanding W.G. Sebald, "No Foothold: Institutions and Buildings in W.G. Sebald's Prose", "Maps" from Graphs, Maps, Trees
Research Report: "Blending Fact, Fiction, Allusion, and Recall: Sebald's 'Literary Monism'" from Understanding W.G. Sebald
Dana
Annotated Bibliography: "Google Lit Trips", Google Earth, Understanding W.G. Sebald, Mobile modernity: Germans, Jews, & Trains, Camtasia Studio
Research Report: Google Earth
Brianna
Annotated Bibliography: "Google Lit Trips", Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy, "The 'Sixth Emigrant': Traveling Places in the Works of W.G. Sebald", "Prose of the World: W.G. Sebald's Literary Travels", Camtasia Studio
Research Report: Camtasia Studio
Gabe
Research Report: Video Capture
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