About
This project aims to deepen our understanding women’s writing Victorian England by expanding on traditional forms of archival research by fleshing out the spatial dimension of women’s networks.
This interdisciplinary project brings together co-investigators from English and Geography, as well as collaborators from Libraries and Cultural Resources. Our research objective is to better understand how propinquity—which explores the influence of physical proximity on relationships—is an under-theorized contributing factor in Victorian women’s writing. Our goal is to supplement the literary archive with a spatial understanding of how women’s careers unfolded. For example, we know that Dinah Craik was close to Margaret Oliphant and Charles Kingsley in her twenties, but extant diaries and letters tell us little about these relationships; historic maps reveal that they were her near neighbours in Mornington Crescent and Brompton respectively. Their physical proximity allows us to fill an explanatory lacuna: the best explanation of their sustained literary interrelationships comes from physical proximity, and it is our novel methodology that gives us the tools and results to provide this explanation.
Team
Karen BourrierAssociate ProfessorDepartment of English |
Dan JacobsonAssociate ProfessorDepartment of Geography |
John BroszData and Visualization CuratorLibraries and Cultural Resources |
Ingrid ReicheMetadata LibrarianLibraries and Cultural Resources |
Peter PellerLibrarianLibraries and Cultural Resources |
Aimee McGrathResearch Assistant |
Hawjin FalahatkarGeography MSc, Urban Design MA |
Sonia JarmulaEnglish MA |
Hanah AndersonEnglish MA |
David LapinsGeography BSc |
Kaelyn MacaulayEnglish BA |
Publications
Research articles, presentations, and other publications from this project.
Mapping & Visualizing Victorian Sociability
Karen Bourrier and Dan Jacobson. North American Victorian Studies Association, Columbus, OH, Sept. 2019.
Mapping & Visualizing Victorian Sociability
Karen Bourrier and Dan Jacobson. Academic Research and University Libraries: Creating a New Model for Collaboration, Calgary, AB, Sept. 2019.
Mapping Victorian Homes and Haunts: A Methodological Introduction
Karen Bourrier, Hannah Anderson, Sonia Jarmula, David Lapins, Kaelyn Macaulay, Peter Peller, Ingrid Reiche, John Brosz, and Dan Jacobson. Journal of Victorian Culture, Volume 26, Issue 2, April 2021, pages 300-309.
DOI: 10.1093/jvcult/vcab003.
Mornington Crescent: A Miniature Portrait
Karen Bourrier, John Brosz, and Dan Jacobson. North American Victorian Studies Association, May 2022.
Gendered Ambiguity in Mapping Nineteenth-Century Women Writers
Karen Bourrier, John Brosz, and Dan Jacobson. North American Victorian Studies Association, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA, Sept. 2022.
Women Writers had Plenty of Babies. Here’s the Data
Karen Bourrier and John Brosz. Slate, Sept. 2022. Slate.com.
Mapping Victorian Data: Gendered Challenges to Mapping Nineteenth-Century Addresses
Karen Bourrier, Dan Jacobson, and John Brosz. Victorian Studies Association of Western Canada, Winnipeg, MB, May 2023.
From SPARQL to Tableau: How to Transform LINCS Data into Tableau Visualizations to Explore Datasets and Investigate Ideas
John Brosz, Alliyya Mo, and Karen Bourrier. Making LINKS: Connections, Cultures, Contexts. University of Guelph, ON, May 2023.
Mornington Crescent: A Miniature Portrait
Karen Bourrier, John Brosz, and Dan Jacobson. Victorian Studies, Volume 65, Number 1, 2023, pages 24-31.
DOI: 10.2979/victorianstudies.65.1.04.
The ‘Wilds of Brompton’: Mapping Nineteenth-Century Women Writers’ Early Careers in the Sociable London Suburbs
Karen Bourrier, Dan Jacobson, and John Brosz. Journal of Victorian Culture, Volume 29, Issue 3, July 2024, pages 363-382.
DOI: 10.1093/jvcult/vcae012
Grants
Mapping Victorian Women’s Writing, SSHRC Insight Grant, 2020-2025.
Mapping and Visualizing Victorian Literary Sociability a 2018 sub-grant of Academic Research and University Libraries: Creating a New Collaborative Model funded by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Special thanks to the Orlando Project, who have generously shared expertise and spatial data on Victorian women writers throughout the development of this project.
Possible ESRI MAP Here?
Contact
karen.bourrier@ucalgary.ca