Project Posts – Walt Whitman's New York

Mapping Whitman’s New York

Matthew Gold — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 17:16:34 +0000

Mapping has been something of an undercurrent in our class so far:

When Claire Fontaine visited our class a few weeks ago, she spoke about the process of connecting flickr photographs to google maps (see her posts here and here for more info).

I’ve assigned you a “then and now” photography assignment in which you are to write a blog post that showcases a historical photo of a location mentioned by Whitman or important to his life and matches it with a photo that you’ve taken yourself of the same location. Ideally, we would then locate all of these photos on map and build together a collaborative map of Whitman’s New York.

Mapping sites/applications

Hypercities

Historic Earth iPhone App

Google Maps

Flickr Maps

Song of Matt

Matthew Gold — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 05:56:34 +0000

. . .

Sit awhile wayfarer,
Here are biscuits to eat and here is milk to drink,
But as soon as you sleep and renew yourself in sweet clothes I will certainly kiss you with my goodbye kiss and open the gate for your egress hence.

Long enough have you dreamed contemptible dreams,
Now I wash the gum from your eyes,
You must habit yourself to the dazzle of the light and of every moment of your life

Long have you timidly waded, holding a plank by the shore,
Now I will you to be a bold swimmer,
To jump off in the midst of the sea, and rise again and nod to me and shout, and laughingly dash with your hair.

I am the teacher of athletes,
He that by me spreads a wider breast than my own proves the width of my own,
He most honors my style who learns under it to destroy the teacher.

. . .