Digital Mediterranean

Project Guidelines

Guidelines

 

Digital Mediterranean Project Guidelines

 

By the end of the Digital Mediterranean Project, you will be able to:

Explain the historical and artistic significance of key monuments and objects as evidence for artistic and cultural interactions in the medieval Mediterranean world.

Analyze the relationship between geography and artistic exchange by applying spatial reasoning and digital mapping tools (ArcGIS StoryMaps) to visualize historical narratives.

Evaluate scholarly sources to construct a persuasive, evidence-based argument about patterns of artistic exchange and cultural interaction.

Engage in interactive digital storytelling that synthesizes historical research, geographical data, and multimedia content.

Communicate complex historical arguments effectively through a visually compelling and analytically rigorous digital format suitable for a broad audience.

 

Project Description:

This assignment introduces you to ArcGIS StoryMaps, a web-based story-authoring application. You will conduct research examining the art, architecture, and material culture of the medieval Mediterranean world by exploring themes such as movement, mobility, portability, migration, and connectivity. You are expected to create a digital map featuring monuments and objects, accompanied by narrative and analytical text, images, sources, videos, audio, and other multimedia content. You will integrate geographic visualization with historical analysis of artistic production and cultural interaction in the medieval Mediterranean. This assignment aims to deepen your understanding of the region’s interconnected histories and spatial relationships, including location, direction, movement, size, and shape in three-dimensional space. Your objective is to apply your course knowledge to develop an engaging and interactive digital showcase demonstrating the networks of artistic exchange and cultural interactions within the political, religious, and economic context of the medieval Mediterranean world.

 

Some of the cities and places you will learn about in this course include, but are not limited to:

 

Project Instructions

 

This assignment consists of three (3) steps, each with its own deadline. These three steps are: Proposal, Research Paper, and ArcGIS StoryMap.

1. Project Proposal:

The proposal establishes your research question, working thesis, analytical framework, and five locations. It outlines what you want to investigate and how the locations help you develop an argument.

2. Research Paper:

In the research paper, you examine scholarly sources for evidence to investigate your research question and develop your argument. It should explain what you discovered about the relationships among your five locations and use evidence to support your analysis.

3. ArcGIS StoryMap

The StoryMap transforms your research paper into a spatial and visual narrative. Use your research paper, images, sources, and geographic information to make your argument and show your audience the interconnections among your five locations.

 

Please refer to the course Canvas page for further how-to instructions and tips.

 

Project Workshop:

We will have a workshop session with Northwestern Library’s GIS Research Specialist, Mech Frazier.

Before class, please sign in to the Northwestern GIS page and review the rest of this site, paying particular attention to the Getting Started with StoryMaps guideline prepared by Mech Frazier.

 

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