Virtual Cartographies: Mapping Historical Memory from the Spanish Civil War and Postwar Period

map of grave sites Website: https://virtualcartographies.com/index.html Principal Investigator(s): Dr. Wendy Kurtz, Digital Humanities

Virtual Cartographies is a digital companion to Dr. Wendy Kurtz’s dissertation: Mass Graves and Remembering through Ritual: Historical Memory in Contemporary Iberian Literature, Film, and Digital Media. By studying the performance of rituals associated with the disinterment process of mass graves from the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) and the ensuing dictatorship of Francisco Franco (1939-1975), This project created a digital map that combines data collected from the Spanish Ministry of Justice—which designates over 2,600 mass grave found throughout Spain—, with a rich collection of texts directly related to specific mass graves sites [including documentaries, novels, YouTube films, blogs, video games, published articles, and historical documentation found through the National Historical archive (PARES – Portal de Archivos Españoles)].

HumTech helped the PI visualize their pilot dataset using GIS systems, by providing dedicated labor and expertise to help her build her map.