070184 UE Methodological course - Digital Humanities Skills: Intro to GIS (2021S)

GIS, which stands for *geographical information system(s)*, has become an important tool of a historian --- to the point that scholars in many humanities disciplines talk about "spatial turns". Indeed, GIS allows us as historians to pay much closer attention to the spatial dimension in studying the past. To begin with, creating maps became so much easier now. Yet, more importantly, we can now map our data to understand spatial distribution of different phenomena --- and how this distribution changed over time; we can map data representing different phenomena and study how they may have affected each other; we can map connections and study how physical space affects the formation of networks; and so much more. This course will focus on the use of the programming language R which shines when it comes to data analysis and creating robust visualizations. The course will consist of three main parts. Part I will introduce you to the basics of R and its philosophy of "tidy data". Part II will focus on specific methods and techniques of spatial analysis. Part III will require you to focus on your own research projects. The language of the course is English.