A New Literary Geography: Establishing a Digital Literary Atlas of Wales and its Borderlands.

这个项目是文学地理学跨学科力量的展示，它提供了对人、文学和土地之间重要联系的洞察。该项目将创建和评估一个互动网站，威尔士及其边境地区的数字文学地图集（DLAW）。DLAW将创新地绘制12本以威尔士为背景的经典和当代小说，以挑战过时的文学地理学方法，并展示“新文学地理学”的潜力。这将是为了：1)鼓励小说叙事的批判性和积极的阅读；2)促进对文学如何帮助加强个人和社区认同的理解；3)加强文化旅游。该项目的第一阶段将创建DLAW。按照现有的文学制图方法，DLAW将从绘制小说中提到的地理参考点开始。然而，这些“遥远的地图”将补充“深度”地图数据，或详细的地方信息（包括人口普查数据、当地历史和文化事件，以统计、视觉和书面形式）。该项目将与威尔士社会和经济研究所（WISERD）密切合作，后者负责协调这些数据，并将支持将其翻译成DLAW。与此相结合，DLAW将为读者提供通过绘制步行路线来定位自己的机会，这些路线明确地勾勒出小说和地点之间的联系。这些路线将辅以方向，作者评论，叙述摘录，批判性讨论，图像和声音。DLAW还将引入一种新的方式，通过将小说节选叠加到地图路线上的图像上，吸引读者参与文学地理学。随着网页设计和地理制图技术的发展，读者将能够在电脑上“滚动”浏览这些故事，就像翻阅书籍或地图集一样简单。由于这种资源的数字性质，用户也可以在实际意义上遵循这些增强路线，在真实的地方行走，通过wifi平板电脑或智能手机连接保持虚拟支持。在第一阶段结束时，DLAW将成为一个开放获取的公共资源，使文学地图、叙事辩论和真实地点的访问民主化。DLAW将作为一个网站，通过它，所有人都可以重新想象他们在文学和地理之间的关系。该项目的第二阶段将严格评估DLAW在经济和文化方面的好处。这一阶段将分为三个部分。首先，该项目将评估DLAW的文化潜力，以鼓励阅读并激发特定地区的兴趣。将招募18个焦点小组来研究DLAW如何改变读者与小说及其地理环境互动的方式。其次，将与焦点小组进行12次文学之旅，其中2次将是公共活动，由项目合作伙伴威尔士文学管理和宣传。这些活动将采取与小说作者或学术专家一起徒步旅行的形式，并为公众提供与小说、专家和实践地点接触的机会。在参观期间，参与者将接受采访并进行调查，以评估DLAW的文化和经济价值。第三，在线调查将通过DLAW评估对小说和地点产生的兴趣。对文学制图改变我们阅读、写作和体验文学的方式的更广泛的见解，以及这样做所带来的文化和经济效益，将产生威尔士以外的影响。该项目的第三阶段将通过政策报告、学术论文、国际节日、会议、公开公共活动和DLAW本身来传达这些见解。

This project is an interdisciplinary demonstration of the power of literary geography to offer insight into the vital connections between people, literature and land. The project will create and evaluate an interactive website, The Digital Literary Atlas of Wales and its Borderlands (DLAW). The DLAW will innovatively map twelve classic and contemporary fictions set in Wales in order to challenge outdated approaches to literary geography, and demonstrate the potential of 'new literary geography'. This will be undertaken in order to: 1) encourage the critical and active reading of fictional narratives; 2) promote understanding of how literature can help strengthen individual and community identity; and 3) enhance cultural tourism. The first phase of the project will create the DLAW. In line with existing approaches to literary mapping, the DLAW will begin with mapping geographical reference points noted in novels. However, these 'distant maps' will be supplemented with 'deep' mapping data, or detailed localities information (including Census data, local histories, and cultural events, in statistical, visual, and written form) about each chosen area. The project will work closely with the Wales Institute for Social and Economic Research (WISERD) who co-ordinate this data and will support its translation onto the DLAW. Coupled to this, the DLAW will offer the reader the opportunity to position themselves within the location by mapping walking routes which explicitly outline the connections between fiction and places. These routes will be supplemented with directions, author commentaries, narrative excerpts, critical discussion, images and sound. The DLAW will also introduce a new way to engage readers with literary geography through superimposing excerpts from fictions onto images from the mapped routes. By engaging with technological developments in web design and geographical mapping, readers will be able to 'scroll' through these placed stories on their computer, as easily as turning the pages of a book or atlas. Due to the digital nature of this resource, users will also be able to follow these augmented routes in a practical sense too, walking them in real places, maintaining virtual support from a wifi tablet or smartphone connection. Active at the end of phase one, the DLAW will be an open access public resource, democratizing access to literary maps, narrative debates, and real places. The DLAW will function as a site through which all individuals will be able to re-imagine their relations between literature and geography. The second phase of the project will critically evaluate the benefits of the DLAW, both economically and culturally. This phase will be split into three parts. Firstly, the project will appraise the cultural potential of the DLAW to encourage reading and stimulate interest in particular localities. 18 focus groups will be recruited to examine how the DLAW changes the ways in which readers engage with fictions and their geographies. Secondly, 12 literary tours will be undertaken with the focus groups, 2 of which will be public events, managed and publicized by Project Partner Literature Wales. These events will take the form of walking tours held with the authors of the fiction or academic experts, and give the public the opportunity to engage with the fictions, experts, and locations in practice. During these tours, participants will be interviewed and surveys undertaken to evaluate the cultural and economic value of the DLAW. Thirdly, online surveys will appraise the interest generated in fiction and location through the DLAW. The broader insights on the power of literary mapping to change the ways we read, write, and experience literature, and the cultural and economic benefits of doing so, will have impact beyond Wales. The third phase of the project will communicate these insights in policy reports, academic papers, international festivals, conferences, open public events, and the DLAW itself.