Mapping Decadence

I decided to analyze the maps in Mapping Decadence, which used ArcGIS to map the locations between several writers in the decadent movement and their publishers. There are several tabs on this website in which you can look at a specific writer’s location compared to their publishers. These writers are Jean Lorrian, Joris-Karl Huysman, Marcel Schwob, and Rachilde. There is also a map that includes all the authors and their publishers under the “mapping decadence” tab. These maps show the location of publishers as red pins, and the location of writers as other colored pins. When clicking on a pin on the map, there is some further information about the name of the writer or publisher, the address of the location, years lived there, and the books published. There are also lines between some pins, which when clicked on provide some more information about the books published. What these maps reveal is that location played an important role in the relationship between writers and publishers. It is clear that the general trend is that the writers lived close to their publishers. However, there is a lot information that is left unsaid from these maps as well.

Through my own research, I found out that the Decadent movement was a late 19th-century artistic and literary movement of Western Europe. It flourished in France, which is evident from the maps being centered around the city of paris. Although this may be implied from the maps, it is never stated or explained, suggesting that the intended viewer of these maps has some background information on the topic. There is also no narrative provided about the author’s or publisher’s life. Important information, such as why the author moved, or the kind of neighborhood they lived in, is left unstated. The about section of the page links to talks about these maps that revealed a lot of important information about the maps that are not immediately apparent. For example, at least in the starts of their careers, many of these authors lived in poorer neighborhoods because they were not wealthy. There are also factors such as family connections that allowed these authors to be put in touch with important publishers that are never mentioned in these maps. Although these maps allow one to grasp the importance of location, they only tell a partial story.

Turnball states that all maps are perspectival and subjective, which is clearly shown in these maps. They were created by a scholar who has extensive background information about these authors and were utilized the very specific purpose of showing the significance of location in the author’s and publisher’s lives. The creator seemed to have meant these maps to be a part of a bigger story that the causal observer is probably not aware of, making the maps somewhat disconnected and difficult to fully understand for the casual observer. The mapmaker leaving out information about the stories of these authors and publishers lives makes a significant difference on how the maps are perceived by the general public.

If I were to create an alternate map, I would focus on making it more accessible to the general public rather than creating it for scholars and people who already background information. I would do this by firstly, making sure to include the definition of the decadence movement and perhaps bios of the authors somewhere. I would also include a timeline with the map to show how and when the author moved around. I would put in little annotations of why they moved in their timeline and include more of their narrative on each pin in the map. I think it would also be interesting to see how the authors interacted with each other, or perhaps the same publisher, so I would try and include the connections between authors as well by linking them together on the map.

Written by Risha Sanikommu