In 1997, Manolo Guzmán defined the notion of sexile: “the exile of those who have had to leave their nations of origin on account of their sexual orientation.” Archivepelago is a Neo4j graph database project visualizing connections between 19th and 20th century sexiled writers and artists by drawing upon archival finding aids documenting the letters they wrote to one another as well as instances of these writers translating one another’s work.

By mapping these connections, the developers of Archivepelago seek a deeper understanding of how notions of sexuality and gender developed in this period transnationally, the nature of queer artistic influence and kinship, and how these factors manifested in the literature produced by these authors. This project is also indebted to digital humanities projects examining transnational movements as networks such as Annette Joseph-Gabriel’s Mapping Marronage and In the Same Boats by Kaiama Glover, et. al. as well as scholarship in the field of Island Studies.

This poster outlines an initial proof-of-concept iteration of this digital public humanities project featuring an interactive visualization of correspondence between writers including Walt Whitman, Edward Carpenter, and Isadora Duncan as well as, in a future release, translations taking place within this network (e.g., Langston Hughes’ translations of the works of Gabriela Mistral and Federico García Lorca). Users are able to explore this network, review the dates of letters/translations and birth/death dates of figures in the network, as well as filter displays based upon types of connections and tags. The presentation will consider process and method.