Mapping Decadence: From a Hunch to a Web Site

Abstract

This article explores the creation of a digital mapping project, Mapping Decadence (mappingdecadence.org). The project explores the role that spatial location played in shaping the collaborations of four late-nineteenth-century French writers with their publishers. Closely affiliated with the Decadent movement, the writers include Joris-Karl Huysmans, Jean Lorrain, Rachilde, and Marcel Schwob. Beginning with the questions that led me to the project in the first place and concluding with my plans for expanding the project in the future, the article offers a roadmap of the trials and triumphs that come with digital humanities mapping projects. It also demonstrates the crucial role played by library resources—human, physical, and digital—in making this project a reality. And it discusses the place of mapping decadence in the wider landscape of digital humanities mapping projects. The article should be of use to scholars, archivists, librarians, and many others currently contemplating a digital project of their own.