Martyn Jessop

Historical GIS and web-based mapping; humanities data; digital visualization; digital humanities pedagogy.

Humanities applications for Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and computer aided mapping as a means of asking new research questions (and old questions in new ways) espcially in the area of history and cultural heritage. The possibilities offered by digital cultural mapping and visualization generally. The development of a pedagogy of the Digital Humanities .

My research interests are spread widely across the digital humanities but are largely concerned with 'non-textual' computing. The main focus is on those aspects of the discipline that concern the use of images, spatial data and visualization; these range from the representation of material culture through to the visualization of spatial and temporal relationships in history and literature. Much of my published work has concentrated on the application of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) to the humanities but I believe that digital visualization methodologies have far wider implications for the digital humanities.

My interests in the digital preservation of our cultural heritage also encompass the digital preservation of sound and moving image materials and of material culture generally. Aside from the outward looking research described here CCH's status as a leading provider of digital humanities education in Europe has given me many opportunities to reflect upon the nature and pedagogy of humanities computing and the implications this has for the rapidly evolving field of digital humanities and the humanities as a whole.

I have worked on numerous projects during my time at CCH including the Corpus Vitrearum Medii Aevi, the Corpus of Romanesque Sculture in Britain and Ireland, The Language of Landsape (Langscape), Humslides, The Fine Rolls of Henry III, The Prosopography of the Byzantine World and British Printed Images since 1700. This work has formed the basis of papers that have been presented at the core Humanities Computing conferences (Association of Literary and Linguistic Computing, Digital Humanities and Digital Resources in the Humanities and Arts) but also at more diverse conferences such as those of the Social Science Historians Association, European Social Science Historians Association, International Society of Anglo-Saxonists, Association for Imaging Science and Technology and the International Cartographers Association.

My interests in imaging and visualization extend to the arts and the more creative and aesthetic aspects of imaging. In 1992 I was elected a Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society in recognition of my work in landscape photography and thus have found the convergence of the Humanities and the Arts at a number of recent events a particularly welcome development in the evolution of the digital humanities .