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Visualizing Crusoe Main MenuIllustrations and Depictions of Robinson CrusoeThe Cross Calendar"Evil" and "Good" ListThe "Evil and Good" List That Crusoe Creates Upon the IslandThe JournalIsland InspirationsTimeline of Events in Robinson CrusoeMap of Robinson Crusoe's VoyageRobinsonade Media GalleryCitation Information for Visualizing CrusoeGiorgina Samira Paiella 85ba2283c689fef8e4189b4706fe3885aa1aed43
Introduction: Visualizing Crusoe
1media/First-edition-of-Daniel-c_30_f_6_fp_tp-2.jpg2019-06-16T22:14:21-07:00Giorgina Samira Paiella 85ba2283c689fef8e4189b4706fe3885aa1aed433421427plain2019-09-17T12:40:40-07:00Giorgina Samira Paiella 85ba2283c689fef8e4189b4706fe3885aa1aed43Introduction: Visualizing CrusoeFew texts have the cultural import 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: the first, “visualizing Crusoe”—that is, using DH tools to visualize, model, and reveal aspects of the novel; and the second, “visualizing Crusoe”—examining 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 has his protagonist record his inner thoughts and experiences on the island through a journal, create a calendar where he tallies how long he has spent shipwrecked upon the island, and pen 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 depictions of 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 viz are indebted to older, traditional forms of data visualization, and how our current digital moment can provide new insights into Defoe's canonical text.