September 25th – Data & Visualization, Short Response:
For my second reading response, I wanted to dive into a few projects that caught my attention this week: Two Plantations, Every Upcoming Solar Eclipse (until 2080), and Gendered Language in Teacher Reviews. Each of these visualizations uses data to tell a story in a way that’s both informative and interactive, but their subject matter and the way they engage viewers are quite different, which is what makes them stand out.
The Two Plantations project struck me immediately because of how it maps out the lives of enslaved people across two plantations—Mount Airy in Virginia and Mesopotamia in Jamaica. The way this project brings historical records to life is extremely powerful. The interactive map, family trees, and details about individuals allow viewers to see the real human impact behind the data. What I found especially compelling is how it doesn’t just give you names or numbers; it restores a sense of identity and connection to people who were often reduced to property. This project is a strong example of how digital humanities can reframe historical narratives and add new layers of understanding. It’s a moving reminder of the importance of telling stories that might otherwise remain buried, humanizing the data in ways traditional history often overlooks.
On the other hand, the Every Upcoming Solar Eclipse (until 2080) visualization takes a more scientific approach but is still very captivating. Created by Denise Lu for The Washington Post, the interactive globe shows all solar eclipses’ paths until 2080. This project brilliantly uses digital tools to visualize something that would be hard to grasp otherwise. What stands out about this visualization is how it lets users interact with the data personally—you can enter your birth year and see how many eclipses will happen during your lifetime. The use of light and dark shades to represent time, combined with hover text tooltips, makes it both engaging and accessible. This project showcases how digital visualizations can make complex scientific information more relatable to a wider audience.
In addition to these projects, I explored Ben Schmidt’s Gendered Language in Teacher Reviews, which uses data from RateMyProfessor to analyze how students describe male and female professors differently. I found it super, super fun to play around with different search terms and see how language changes based on gender. This project is particularly engaging because it lets the user drive the experience—you input specific terms and get immediate visual results. The ability to personalize the data output based on user input adds a unique level of interaction and makes the findings feel more relevant. It got me thinking about how one would create such an interactive and tailored visualization, where the user shapes the narrative rather than passively absorbing information.
One of the most surprising takeaways from this week’s readings and projects is just how many tools and resources are available for creating digital humanities visualizations. I had no idea there were so many options out there, as highlighted in the NYU guide on digital humanities tools. It’s exciting to think about the possibilities for using these tools to create my own visualizations and tell stories in dynamic, user-driven ways.
Overall, these projects show the power of digital tools in making abstract or complex data come to life. Whether it’s through uncovering hidden histories, mapping celestial events, or revealing gendered biases in language, the potential for digital humanities to reshape how we interact with information is both vast and inspiring.
