Lauren Klein (Georgia Tech) has shared the text of a paper she presented at MLA 2017, “Feminist Data Visualization; Or, the Shape of History.” In it, Klein examines the work of Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, a nineteenth century educator who designed visualizations to be used in educational settings.
Peabody’s visual method replaces the hierarchical mode of knowledge transmission that standard visualization techniques rest upon with a more horizontal mode, one that locates the source of knowledge in the interplay between viewer, image, and text.
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[T]his method, when reimagined for the present, raises the stakes for a series of enduring questions—about the issue of labor (and its relation to knowledge work), the nature of embodiment (and how it might be better attached to digital methods), and the role of interpretation (and how is not only bound to perception, but also design).
Klein goes on to describe two recent projects in which she works to extend, bend, and experiment with Peabody’s method of visualization.
