Introduction: Visualizing Crusoe
Few texts in the literary canon can match the cultural significance and prolific legacy of Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. First published on April 25th, 1719, Defoe's novel is often considered one of the earliest—if not the first—English novels, is a key text in the rise of fictionality, and has inspired an abundant genre of narratives known as "Robinsonades" that adapt the core themes, values, and plot devices of Defoe's text.
The year 2019 marks the tercentary celebrations of the original publication of Robinson Crusoe. This literary milestone provides an opportunity to reflect upon the ways in which Defoe's text has influenced the literary canon, the media landscape, popular culture, and the complex entanglements of survival, isolation, individualism, colonialism, and race.
This project originated out of a desire to consider how Robinson Crusoe is a deeply visual text. The title of this project aims to capture two dual threads that emerge from the novel and an examination of Defoe's text in the digital age: the first, “visualizing Crusoe”—that is, using DH tools to visualize, model, and reveal aspects of the novel proper; and the second, “visualizing Crusoe”—a fitting description of a protagonist who makes meaning of his world by producing visual tools and artifacts, including lists, tables, journals, and tallies during his time spend upon the island. Three-hundred years ago—centuries before the digital humanities boom—Crusoe thinks visually. As part of his project of establishing plausible fiction and lending credence to his narrative (Defoe initially asserted the narrative was merely prepared by an editor and based upon the travels of a real person), Defoe's protagonist records his inner thoughts and experiences on the island in a journal, creates a calendar where he tallies how long he has spent shipwrecked upon the island, and pens an "evil and good" list reminiscent of a modern "pro and con" list. These lists, journals, tallies, and artifacts are all examples of data visualization, and in curating them—or creating them from scratch—I aim to explore how the original text of Robinson Crusoe represents data and information. I also focus on other visual aspects of the text and its historical inspirations and contexts, such as real-life castaway narratives and inspirations for the island on which Crusoe is shipwrecked.
This project also features some new visualizations that I have created based on Robinson Crusoe using current digital humanities tools, including an interactive timeline of the events that unfold in the novel, a map of Crusoe's travels that he recounts in his narrative, and a media gallery of "Robinsonades" inspired by the novel. Three-hundred years on, Robinson Crusoe reveals how many of our current methods of data visualization are indebted to older, traditional forms of data visualization and how our current digital moment can provide new insights into Defoe's canonical text. This looking both forward and backward aims to historicize data viz and digital humanities practice and also examine through these tools a text that is not born-digital. I intend for this project to serve as a pedagogical tool to supplement studies of Robinson Crusoe.
Browse the "Table of Contents" below to navigate to different elements of "Visualizing Crusoe," also navigable in the upper left-hand corner of the site banner. The Home button in that side menu will return you to the initial book splash of the project. If you would like to cite this project, I kindly ask that you use the citation information available on "Citation Information for Visualizing Crusoe." Happy navigating!
—Giorgina Samira Paiella
The year 2019 marks the tercentary celebrations of the original publication of Robinson Crusoe. This literary milestone provides an opportunity to reflect upon the ways in which Defoe's text has influenced the literary canon, the media landscape, popular culture, and the complex entanglements of survival, isolation, individualism, colonialism, and race.
This project originated out of a desire to consider how Robinson Crusoe is a deeply visual text. The title of this project aims to capture two dual threads that emerge from the novel and an examination of Defoe's text in the digital age: the first, “visualizing Crusoe”—that is, using DH tools to visualize, model, and reveal aspects of the novel proper; and the second, “visualizing Crusoe”—a fitting description of a protagonist who makes meaning of his world by producing visual tools and artifacts, including lists, tables, journals, and tallies during his time spend upon the island. Three-hundred years ago—centuries before the digital humanities boom—Crusoe thinks visually. As part of his project of establishing plausible fiction and lending credence to his narrative (Defoe initially asserted the narrative was merely prepared by an editor and based upon the travels of a real person), Defoe's protagonist records his inner thoughts and experiences on the island in a journal, creates a calendar where he tallies how long he has spent shipwrecked upon the island, and pens an "evil and good" list reminiscent of a modern "pro and con" list. These lists, journals, tallies, and artifacts are all examples of data visualization, and in curating them—or creating them from scratch—I aim to explore how the original text of Robinson Crusoe represents data and information. I also focus on other visual aspects of the text and its historical inspirations and contexts, such as real-life castaway narratives and inspirations for the island on which Crusoe is shipwrecked.
This project also features some new visualizations that I have created based on Robinson Crusoe using current digital humanities tools, including an interactive timeline of the events that unfold in the novel, a map of Crusoe's travels that he recounts in his narrative, and a media gallery of "Robinsonades" inspired by the novel. Three-hundred years on, Robinson Crusoe reveals how many of our current methods of data visualization are indebted to older, traditional forms of data visualization and how our current digital moment can provide new insights into Defoe's canonical text. This looking both forward and backward aims to historicize data viz and digital humanities practice and also examine through these tools a text that is not born-digital. I intend for this project to serve as a pedagogical tool to supplement studies of Robinson Crusoe.
Browse the "Table of Contents" below to navigate to different elements of "Visualizing Crusoe," also navigable in the upper left-hand corner of the site banner. The Home button in that side menu will return you to the initial book splash of the project. If you would like to cite this project, I kindly ask that you use the citation information available on "Citation Information for Visualizing Crusoe." Happy navigating!
—Giorgina Samira Paiella