James Rankin project
The James Rankin project aims to carry out a digital critical edition of a 19th century travel diary, bringing together the translated manuscript and some multimedia support.
The first key goal of this Digital Humanities project is to contribute to the dissemination of the 19th century American continent history among readers of all types. The travel diary offers more and new content on a widely studied subject, allowing to learn more and better about it. This project has the particularity of being a work of transversal attractive with a very broad audience, that goes beyond the academic field, and that can be a recreational reading for a wide public as well –specially of both North Americans and Chileans– attracted to the subject.
A second goal is to make known a valuable historical and literary source, privately owned and hitherto unknown and unpublished. Due to its thematic variety this journal is of multidisciplinary interest, and can be used by scholars and researchers in the Humanities and Social Sciences, focused on social relations and cultural exchanges between the United States and Chile, 19th century travel practices and literature, history of science, sociological and cultural studies, geography, botany, mineralogy and nautical sciences. James Rankin was not an isolated subject; his written thoughts can be considered as an open window to the vibrant and changing world of the 19th century. His journal reveals practices, mentalities and cultural exchanges between North and South America. This premise can be developed in many levels. For example, by experiencing authentic contact with wildlife –a vivid expression of a generalized malaise mood against to the widespread scientism, and the supposed split between man and Nature. The practice of keeping a record of everything experienced is also an interesting cultural manifestation, considered today within the literary genre, such as Travel Literature. Actions like these may be understood as expressions of an emotional disposition, strongly influenced by the Romantic mindset.
The digital nature of this project goes far beyond the possibilities offered by a printed edition in many ways. From a practical point of view, the digital format overcomes the limitations of the physical text and remains available as open source for all. Secondly, it transforms a traditional source –that is, a manuscript– into a very complex and didactic one, with additional information, visualizations and some motion images. The latter positions this proposal among the few Latin American Digital Humanities projects that combine travel literature with digital media.
The possibilities offered by Digital Humanities will trigger an ongoing and collaborative work on the source itself and may turn this project into a long-term venture in the field.
