Gephi

"I think I'm getting the hang of this Gephi thing!"—My famous last words. 

Anyways, the potential of Gephi and data mapping in regards to literature is, honestly a little thrilling? It's a whole different way of reading works that we've read for ages. Like I mentioned in class, the example work Gephi uses to demo their software is characters in Les Miserables. It might be too much to say that the potential of software of Gephi it makes these works feel new, but the idea that there are overlying structures that we don't usually see and now can... That's amazing! It's like we have X-ray vision. 

Now, applying the software to my data proved more challenging. I think my nodes might have been broken somehow, since I only had twelve, and it was easy to make mistakes that I didn't know how to undo, but following the step by steps from Gephi and Dr. Drouin, I think I was able to at least sort of arrange the data how I wanted. It had shapes and colors, and when you export as a PDF, it does this beautiful curve thing. Quite nice to look at. 

The thing I guess I am still so intrigued/frustrated by, is how it feels difficult to know which questions are the right to ask. I guess in the humanities I'm so used to the more philosophical and theoretical side of things it feels weird to look at something this mathematic. Once you have a graph organized and layed out is when the questions really start to arise. In this case, it really layed out the thematic soup all the authors were living in. Relatable! 

I tried to embed my photo, but I don't know that it succeded so I am also linking a photo to my work.