Collaborative Strategies for the Spatial Humanities
Spatial humanities represents a new interdisciplinary approach to the sorts of questions asked by humanists. It redirects many of the tools and methods of information scientists—data mining, advanced visualization, spatial analysis, serious gaming, etc.—to problems of history and culture from ancient to modern times. In doing so, it asks humanities scholars to do something quite foreign to their training: collaborate. This new field depends upon the ability of researchers from many disciplines to learn from each other and to use a...
read moreAn Exploration of Deep Maps
Over the past twelve months the terms deep maps and deep mapping have begun to appear with some regularity in scholarly literature, especially within the humanities. One reason is dissatisfaction with GIS as an appropriate tool for humanities disciplines such as history, literature, and cultural studies. For all of its power, GIS demands a measurable location, but much of the evidence used by humanists is notoriously imprecise. GIS treats time as an attribute of space, but time is a dynamic marker for humanists with references to past,...
read moreIntroducing the Digital Atlas of American Religion
Indiana University issued a press release announcing The Polis Center’s newest website, the Digital Atlas of American Religion (http:religionatlas.org). I sat down with project manager Sharon Kandris and lead systems engineer Neil Devadasan to learn more. Polis just announced that the Digital Atlas of American Religion is live. Can you provide some background about the website? Sharon: Sure. The North American Religion Atlas was the pre-cursor to DAAR. When we developed NARA in 2001, it was one of the first web-based GIS sites for the...
read moreInternship Opportunities
Are you interested in an internship to expand your skill set and build your professional network? Check out our job postings and contact us to apply.
read moreA data-informed approach to strategic planning
Most organizations will agree that strategic planning is important. It’s essential for setting goals, documenting accomplishments, evaluating resources, and measuring an organization’s success in each of these activities. And most will agree that using data to inform the creation of a strategic plan is useful to ensure that the established goals address the most pressing issues and that there are metrics in place for effective evaluation of their efforts. But data can be incredibly overwhelming. What kinds of data should you use? How do...
read moreAl Roker’s Emergency Preparedness PSA
Last week, NBC’s TODAY Show released a series of four public service advertisements (PSAs) created in partnership with the Ad Council. In one PSA, Al Roker teamed with FEMA’s Ready campaign to raise awareness about emergency preparedness. What do you think?
read moreAre YOU prepared for severe weather?
Early last year, meteorologists buzzed about how bizarre and extreme the weather was in 2011. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the U.S. sustained 14 weather and climate disasters that EACH caused $1 billion or more in damages [read the full article]. There was the disastrous tornado outbreak across the south and Midwest, deadly wildfires in the southeast, and Hurricane Irene, which pummeled the Mid-Atlantic Coast. A record year, to be sure. But that was nothing compared to the weather we saw in 2012....
read moreEsri features Polis storymap
You may recall our post last summer that introduced the scholars who participated in the National Endowment for the Humanities intensive workshop hosted at The Polis Center and IUPUI. In that blog, we experimented with Esri’s new storymap templates that allow ArcGIS users to creatively visualize a tale by attaching spatial attributes to photographs, narrative, and more. Esri is now highlighting our Spatial Narratives & Deep Maps storymap as one of its feature partner stories. Check it out and tell us what you think! (And stayed tuned...
read moreJanuary News and Events
Check out the latest information and news about Polis, our staff, new projects, and this month’s events. Spatial Humanities Workshop in Israel Risk MAP Community Resiliency Meetings Sign up for a free SAVI class! Hazard Mitigation in Ohio Collaborative Silver Jackets Project Kick-off Multihazard Mitigation Council Symposium January 16-17 Historical Geographic Information Systems (HGIS) for reconstructing the past The National...
read moreNew Book in Polis Center Series on Religion and Urban Culture
Ecologies of Faith in New York City The Evolution of Religious Institutions Edited by Richard Cimino, Nadia A. Mian, and Weishan Huang Foreword by Nancy T. Ammerman “A great resource for students in congregational, religious, and urban studies [and] a valuable installment in the resurrection of urban religious ecology.” —Omar McRoberts, University of Chicago Ecologies of Faith in New York City examines patterns of interreligious cooperation and conflict in New York City. It explores how representative congregations in this...
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