[Kirsten Ashley Bussière]

I’ve been having a really good time discussing maps and speculative fiction with  @djgavin in the Science and Speculative Fictions group. This challenge has allowed me to network with people working on some similar but different tasks that I think will allow for fruitful discussion of maps and literature and the act of creating maps more generally.

I also went ahead and did the second part of the challenge and created a Utopian Studies group to discuss topics related to utopias, utopianism, utopian literature, utopian theory, and intentional communities.

[Kirsten Ashley Bussière]

I found a few people to follow so far and I will continue to look for more. In one of the groups I posted a new topic but nobody has answered just yet on Humanities Commons. On Twitter though I had a fellow scholar respond to my tweet which summarized what I did for this challenge and the topic of my discussion. It turns out that we both are working on mapping and literature so I guess this networking activity helped me network elsewhere as well.

[Kirsten Ashley Bussière]

Here is what I’ve done to my profile so far! I might make some more changes depending on how I’m feeling as the deadline approaches.
https://hcommons-staging.org/members/kirstenbussiere/

[Kirsten Ashley Bussière]

Hi there! I’m Kirsten Bussière. I am currently completing my MA in English and Digital Humanities  at Carleton University and I will be attending the University of Ottawa in the fall for my PhD in English. My current research pertains to utopian nostalgia and collective memory in contemporary post-apocalyptic fiction. Focusing on the geographies of loss I digitally map fictional spaces.

I am also new to the Humanities Commons platform so I hope I will become more accustomed to it as the summer goes on. My goal is to increase and improve my academic presence online.

[Kirsten Ashley Bussière]

Maps and fantasy definitely are more common! If you know any theoretical articles associated with that it would likely be helpful as well. I’m working on a project where I digitally map post-apocalyptic spaces and I am trying to situate my work in the context of literary maps, more specifically utopias and science fiction, but discussions of maps in other genres might be a good resource.

[Kirsten Ashley Bussière]

Tally and Harvey do have some good comments on mapmaking in relation to the geopolitical implications of maps in general. There is also  chapter 11: “Utopia of the Map” in Utopics: Spatial Play by Louis Marin that discusses the map as a model of its object but also a double of the Empire as a global institution.

You might also be interested in “Mapping” by Diana S. Sinton from Digital Pedagogy in the Humanities, which discusses the act of creating maps as well as the use of maps for teaching and learning.

 
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[Kirsten Ashley Bussière]

Thank you for your helpful response! I actually have not looked at the article or book that you mentioned. My previous research took me to Robert J. Tally’s comments on Cognitive Mapping, in <i>Utopia in the Age of Globalization </i>David Harvey’s Spaces of Hope both of which are less about maps per-se but rather a discussion of the geopolitical aspects of utopian texts.  Thank you!

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