Center for Spatial Research | Summer 2016
Dare Brawley, Eric Glass, Leah Meisterlin
May 23, 2016 – June 10, 2016 | 1:00-5:30 pm
Studio@Butler & 300 S Buell Hall
Mapping for the Urban Humanities is an intensive workshop on digital mapping designed for humanities faculty from Columbia University and offered through the Center for Spatial Research at the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation with support from the Office of the Dean of Humanities.
This hands-on workshop is intended to broaden and transform the disciplinary locations within which data analysis takes place. The workshop will introduce participating faculty to open-source mapping software, QGIS, to methods of data collection and creation, and to approaches and concepts in critical spatial analysis. With support from the course’s three instructors, participants will incorporate newly-acquired spatial analysis skills into course assignments and syllabi. The ultimate aim of the summer intensive is to equip faculty with tools to transform their humanities courses into places where students learn data analytical skills and apply them to humanistic questions.
The course condenses topics from a semester long introductory GIS course into a two-week hands-on intensive. Skills based tutorials draw on diverse datasets relevant to investigations in the urban humanities, including: CEISEN’s Gridded Population of the World, UN Population Division national population estimates, the National Historic Geographic Information System’s historic census records, historical rail lines from the University of Nebraska’s Digital History Project, Reference USA records for music industry businesses, American Community Survey demographic data, New York State Board of Education records of schools, and scanned historical maps from Columbia University’s map collection. Course tutorials and lectures have been developed concurrently and will expose faculty to critical approaches in GIS, introductory spatial analysis methods, and modes of data creation.
Anthropology, Architecture, Art History and Archaeology, Department of Classics, Heyman Center for the Humanities, History, Institute for Comparative Literature and Society, Jewish Studies, Journalism, Language Resource Center, Latin American and Iberian Cultures, Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies
Over the course of the first two weeks (May 23-June 3), faculty will learn critical methods in digital mapping and data collection through the use of open-source software (QGIS). The course will meet for 4.5 hours each day in an intensive workshop and lab format. The third week (June 6 -10) will focus on bolstering skills development and on how to incorporate newly acquired skills into course assignments and syllabi, using the syllabi submitted with the application to the course as a starting point. During the third week participation is optional and will be scheduled in individual skill and syllabus workshop sessions.
The course aims to equip faculty with a grasp of the methods and methodologies of Geographic Information Systems so that they can introduce critical spatial pedagogies into their teaching and research. Through the course faculty will:
- Develop robust familiarity with QGIS and its functions
- Perform vector and raster spatial analysis operations
- Create new spatial datasets using data creation methods integral to GIS
- Identify and analyze key data sources in their field
- Adapt course tutorials for use in their own classes
- Develop data-driven urban humanities courses and assignments
- Laptop with qGIS 2.8 installed
- All course tutorials will be provided and available via Github
- Optional: a 16 GB flash drive to store course data + exercises
The Center for Spatial Research was established in 2015 as a hub for urban research that links design, architecture, urbanism, the humanities and data science. It sponsors research and curricular activities built around new technologies of mapping, data visualization, data collection, and data analysis. CSR focuses on data literacy as well as interrogating the world of 'big data,' working to open up new areas of research and inquiry with advanced design tools to help scholars, students as well as our collaborators and audiences, to understand cities worldwide – past present and future.
Our projects generally involve collaborations with researchers and advocates across a variety of disciplines and institutions, working with them to communicate information clearly, critically, responsibly, and provocatively. We are committed to rigorous and reliable work with data; to harnessing the most powerful techniques of design and visualization; and to a critical reflection on the limits and ideologies of both data and its representation. Based in the disciplines of design, architecture and urbanism we make links with and bring spatial expertise to the humanities as well as the sciences.
We highly recommend that you read the following three essays/chapters during the course. A further list of resources (spanning critical approaches to GIS, project and course examples, and instructional texts) is available here.
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Miller, Roger P. “Beyond Method, Beyond Ethics: Integrating Social Theory into GIS and GIS into Social Theory.” Cartography and Geographic Information Systems. 1995, 22(1): 98-103.
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Travis, Charles B. “Toward the Spatial Turn.” In Abstract Machine: Humanities GIS. Redlands, California: ESRI Press, 2015.
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Urban Theory Lab. “Envisioning an Urbanized Planet—Materials” in Implosions/Explosions. Edited by Neil Brenner. Berlin: JOVIS, 2014.
Monday, May 23 | Introduction Studio@Butler
- Topics: Introductions, What is GIS?, Course overview: Mapping, Making, Analyzing
- Tutorial: Mapping Data 00: Adding Layers to a Map
Tuesday, May 24 | Mapping Data 01 Studio@Butler
- Topics: GIS Data Types: Vector & Raster; Quantitative & Qualitative, Fundamentals of Cartography, Symbology, Classification
- Tutorial: Mapping Data 01: Mapping World Populations
- Population by Country
- CEISEN Gridded Population of the World
Wednesday, May 25 | Mapping Data 02 Studio@Butler
- Topics: Coordinate Reference Systems & Projection
- Tutorial: Mapping Data 02: Map Projections & Population Density
- U.S. Population by County 1850, 1870 Historical Census
- U.S. Rail Lines 1850, 1870
Thursday, May 26 | Making Data 01 300 S Buell Hall
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Topics: Where GIS Data Comes From, Georeferencing, Digitizing
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Tutorial:
- Making Data 01: Working with Historical Maps
- East Bronx c. 1902: “Map or plan showing the system of streets, avenues, public squares and places, parks, bridges, etc. in that part of the borough of the Bronx, City of New York lying easterly of the Bronx River.”
- Making Data 01: Working with Historical Maps
Friday, May 27 | Making Data 02 300 S Buell Hall
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Topics: Digitizing, Geocoding
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Tutorials:
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Making Data 01 (con’t): Working with Historical Maps
- East Bronx c. 1902: “Map or plan showing the system of streets, avenues, public squares and places, parks, bridges, etc. in that part of the borough of the Bronx, City of New York lying easterly of the Bronx River.”
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Making Data 02: Geocoding Music
- Reference USA Database of Music Related Businesses c. 2015
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Monday, May 30 | No Workshop, Memorial Day
Tuesday, May 31 | Analyzing Data 01 Studio@Butler
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Topics Introduction to Geoprocessing, Vector Geoprocessing Operations, Spatial Joins, Working with Census Data
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Tutorial: Analyzing Data 01: Libraries, Education, and Language
- NYC Branch Libraries
- American Community Survey Language Spoken by Census Tract
- NYC Board of Education Elementary School Locations
Wednesday, June 1 | Analyzing Data 02 300 S Buell Hall
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Topics Creative Geoprocessing | Proportional Split Estimation, Raster Operations, Raster Classification
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Tutorials:
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Analyzing Data 01 (con’t): Libraries and Education
- NYC Branch Libraries
- American Community Survey Language Spoken by Census Tract
- NYC Board of Education Elementary School Locations
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Analyzing Data 02: Mapping New York City’s Boundary(s)
- Land Use Land Cover Classifications
- Metropolitan Statistical Areas, Combined Statistical Areas, Urban Areas
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Thursday, June 2 | Analyzing Data 03 Studio@Butler
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Topics Density Maps, Raster-based Decision Mapping
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**Tutorial:**Analyzing Data 03: Concentrations of Libraries and Education
- NYC Branch Libraries
- NYC Board of Education Elementary School Locations
Friday, June 3 | Bringing it all Together 300 S Buell Hall
- Designing Methodologies and Assignments
Monday, June 6 | Spatial Pedagogies 300 S Buell Hall
- 1:00-3:30pm Spatial Pedagogies: a conversation with Laura Kurgan, Director CSR, Juan Francisco Saldarriaga, Associate Research Scholar, CSR and Leah Meisterlin, Assistant Professor of Urban Planning GSAPP
- Conflict Urbanism: Aleppo
- Mapping for Architecture Urbanism and the Humanities
- Datascapes and the Informal City
Tuesday, June 7 | Syllabus Development & Practicum Studio@Butler
- Curriculum Development Sessions by Appointment
Wednesday, June 8 | Syllabus Development & Practicum Studio@Butler
- Curriculum Development Sessions by Appointment
Thursday, June 9 | Syllabus Development & Practicum Studio@Butler
- Curriculum Development Sessions by Appointment
Friday, June 10 | Syllabus Development & Practicum 300 S Buell Hall
- Debrief and discussion of course outcomes with Laura Kurgan, Director CSR, and Sharon Marcus, Dean of Humanities and Orlando Harriman Professor of English and Comparative Literature.