Google Lit Trips for Higher Education

Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann

Mon, 2 Feb 2009 05:54:19 -0800

About the Contributors...
This Google Lit Trip was developed jointly by the students of "GE 13186 - Fictions of the Known World" at the University of Notre Dame under the supervision of Professor Tobias Boes (tboes at nd dot edu) during the fall semester of 2008.
Students were divided into four groups of various sizes, and assigned the task of either creating KML markups for specific locations mentioned in the novel (Lübeck, Travemünde and Beyond), or of presenting pertinent background information in geospatial format (The Hanseatic League, The 1848 Revolution). The goal of this exercise, and of the class as a whole, was to show that literature can act as a kind of map and has a profound effect on the ways in which a culture imagines its place in the known world. A secondary goal of the Lit Trip assignment was to raise student awareness of intellectual copyright issues; all quotations required proper citation and all images had to be either in the public domain or had to undergo prior copyright clearance.
Tobias Boes (tboes at nd dot edu) is an Assistant Professor at the University of Notre Dame, where he specializes in German culture during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and in the history of the novel. The names of all the students who were involved with this project can be found within the Lit Trip itself. For more information about German Studies at the University of Notre Dame, please visit: http://www.nd.edu/~grl/german/index.html.

The Hyakunin Isshu One Hundred Poets in One Hundred Poems

Mon, 15 Dec 2008 12:05:11 -0800

The Hyakunin Isshu, in particular the Ogura Hyakunin Isshu, is a collection of 100 poems by 100 different poets. About 750 years ago, the poet Fujiwara no Sadaie (also known as Teika) selected them. They are fairly chronologically ordered from the seventh through the thirteenth centuries. The poems are all ‘waka’ (now called ‘tanka’). Waka are five-line poems of 31 syllables, arranged as 5, 7, 5, 7, 7. The simplicity and beauty of the poems is still very much appreciated in Japan and abroad.
The Hyakunin Isshu Google Earth project is particularly interesting in that each poem is linked to a beautiful website that provides extensive additional resources for appreciating the poetry.

About the Contributor...
Hetty Litjens
“I learned a few languages and enjoy entering uncharted territory. I am in early retirement and it feels as if my life is beginning for real just now. Google Earth gives you the possibility to enter the backyards of other cultures”
“I am infatuated with these poems myself.
Their charm is that they express the feelings, emotions, hopes, fears, happiness and sadness of real people living about a thousand years ago. We see the world through their eyes. Their observations become ours. In Japan and everywhere people are still enjoying the beauty of the cherry blossoms. The poems are short, compact, have puns and double meanings, everything to make them interesting even now. They connect life of a thousand years ago with our life, with Japanese history, culture and nature. School children in Japan are still playing the Hyakunin card game. Books continue to be written about them. And this can go on for another thousand years.”
This incredible collection of 100 poems by 100 different poets was developed by Hetty Litjens, who also developed the Lit Trip for Traveling With P.G. Wodehouse.

. *The author of this Lit Trip maintains an external download site which is continually under revision. To download the latest revision click the View in Google Earth link on this page. 

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 14:53:14 -0700

About the Contributor...
Matthew Hart Granada High School in Livermore, CA and an adjunct teacher at Chabot College in Hayward, CA 
He has a Master's Degree in English Literature, specialized in 20th Century American and English Literature, and wrote his master's thesis on Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian.

Matthew has presented the Google Lit Trips project during a session at the California Association of Teachers of English Conference at Fresno in 2007.  Matthew hasn't won any awards, but his wife and children really love him.

Download: The Road.kmz
New! Read Google Book Search Results for The Road

The Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mary Rowlandson by Mary Rowlandson

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 06:39:52 -0800

The Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mary Rowlandson, first printed in 1682, tells the story of the author’s seven weeks and five days spent living with Native Americans. The book is considered a seminal work of American captivity narratives.

About the Contributor...
Jon Miller
http://www.jonmiller.org The University of Akron.

Jon Miller is an Associate Professor of English, at the University of Akron in Akron, Ohio. where he teaches American literature from the beginnings to about 1870. He also teaches American literary and cultural history.
Jon Miller...
• has published extensively on the interpretation of American literature in the context of the history of drinking and temperance reform
• has served as the editor of The Social History of Alcohol Review and the Alcohol and Drugs History Society's Daily Register.

Download: Mary Rowlandson.kmz
New! Read Google Book Search Results for The Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mary Rowlandson

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce

Sat, 27 Oct 2007 07:12:20 -0700

Presentation created by David Herring, University High School, Tucson, Arizona
Download: Portrait.kmz
New! Read Google Book Search Results for Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Be sure to visit David Herring’s excellent Google Earth Education Community website at http://edweb.tusd.k12.az.us/dherring/ge/googleearth.htm for great resources for using Google Earth in a wide variety of curricular areas.
Contact: david.herring@tusd1.org

Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy

Wed, 18 Apr 2007 19:44:31 -0700

About the Contributor...
Matthew Hart Granada High School in Livermore, CA and an adjunct teacher at Chabot College in Hayward, CA 
He has a Master's Degree in English Literature, specialized in 20th Century American and English Literature, and wrote his master's thesis on Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian.

Matthew has presented the Google Lit Trips project during a session at the California Association of Teachers of English Conference at Fresno in 2007.  Matthew hasn't won any awards, but his wife and children really love him.

Download: Blood Meridian v2.kmz
New! Read Google Book Search Results for Blood Meridian