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Dr. Charles Travis

Visiting Research Fellow (History)
      
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Dr. Charles Travis

Visiting Research Fellow (History)

 ctravis@tcd.ie

 


Dr. Charles Travis was conferred a PhD in Geography from Trinity College Dublin in 2006. He is currently a Research Fellow with Trinity Center for Environmental Humanities in the School of Histories and Humanities and Associate Professor of Geography & GIS at the University of Texas, Arlington. He was awarded an MA in Geography & Planning (University of Toledo, 1999), an MA in Mass Communication (Bowling Green State University, 1991) and a BA in Psychology (University of Toledo, 1989). He was the recipient of a Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Digital Humanities (TCD, 2008-2010) a Broad Curriculum Scholarship (TCD, 2005-2006) and an MA Tuitionship in Geography (Toledo, 1997-1998).
Project Title
 Whaling to the `Season-on-the-Line": Deep Charting Herman Melville"s Moby Dick (1851)
From
2025
To
Summary
The historiographical significance of my project is to reframe the early oceanic dimensions and impact of whaling expeditions, oil, viscera and skeletal extractions, culture and commerce on the American maritime and global imagination during the expansion of the United States and emergence of the nation as a hemispheric and world power. My study is a humanities focused response to the United Nation"s Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development 2021"2030 initiative which declares mapping technologies will be at the core of a "true revolution in ocean science." I hope to visit the G. W. Blunt White Library at Mystic Seaport, where to study and source data from whale and weather logbooks, maritime charts and atlases, diaries, ship and company registers related to American whaling expeditions from the colonial period to 1900. This will help me to chart how whaling an oil extractions, production, commerce and capitalization intersected with the United States" westward expansion, the Civil War and the growth of the U.S. Navy, its oceanographic knowledge and global reach. Similarly, the collections of the Phillips Library at the Peabody Essex Museum hold logbooks, account books, diaries, printed ephemera, photo-albums, and photographs related to oceanic cultures and collections of maritime and natural history literature, which intersect with the growth of American hemispheric trade between 1800 and 1900. As my project links cartographic representation with environmental history and geospatial data, I am interested in exploring maritime map and atlas collections of the Norman B. Leventhal Map Center at the Boston Public Library.
Funding Agency
Massachusetts Historical Society
Person Months
6
Project Title
 Twilight of the Cowboy God
From
1.6.2020
To
9.1.2020
Summary
Texas Portal to Texas History, Digital Fellowship
Funding Agency
University of North Texas, Texas Portal to Texas History
Programme
TPTH Fellowship
Project Type
Digital map and timeline
Person Months
12
Project Title
 Covid-19 Working Group for Public Health and Social Sciences
From
16.4.2020
To
9.1.2021
Summary
Funding Agency
National Science Foundation-CONVERGE, University of Colorado, at Boulder
Person Months
12
Project Title
 STEAM (STEM+Arts)
From
2015
To
2018
Summary
Irish Research Council Interdisciplinary Research
Funding Agency
Irish Research Council
Project Title
 Faculty Fellowship on Sustainability in the Curriculum
From
2017
To
2018
Summary
Funding Agency
UTA Institute for Sustainability and Global Impact

Page 1 of 3
Details Date From Date To
Association of American Geographers 1997 Present
American Historical Association 2016 Present
American Conference of Irish Studies 2012 Present
Charles Travis, Re-Territorializing Frederick Jackson Turner's Rhetorical Cartography: Reconsidering the U.S. Census 1870-1900 and the Multiple & Intersecting Landscapes of the American Frontier, Historical Geography, 2025, Journal Article, IN_PRESS
Charles Travis, Environment as a Weapon: Geographies, Histories, Literature, Switzerland, Springer Nature, 2024, 230pp, Book, PUBLISHED  TARA - Full Text  DOI
Ghost Seer of the West: W.B. Yeats and the Spectral Geographies of Sligo in, editor(s)William Nolan and Kieran O'Connor , Sligo and Society: Interdisciplinary Essays on the History of an Irish County, Dublin, Ireland, Geography Publications, 2024, [Charles Travis], Book Chapter, PUBLISHED  URL
Mapping and the Epistemological Origins of the Spatial Humanities in, editor(s)John Corrigan and Andrew Gardner , Oxford Handbook of the Spatial Humanities, Oxford, 2024, [Charles Travis], Book Chapter, IN_PRESS
Powerful Geography through Historical Geography: A Case Study of Social Studies Teacher Preparation in, editor(s)Michael Solem, Richard G. Boehm and Joann Zadrozny , Powerful Geography: International Perspectives and Applications, Switzerland, Springer, 2024, [Charles Travis, Andrew Milson], Book Chapter, PUBLISHED  DOI
Charles Travis, A Historical GIS of Carboniferous Extractions and Industrial Assemblages: The American Civil War 1860-1865,, 2024, Journal Article, PRESENTED  URL
Charles Travis, Logbooks, Whale Catches and Oceanic Climates: Reconstructing Maritime History in GIS With Herman Melville's Moby Dick, or the White Whale (1851), Oceans Past X, 2024, Cornwall, United Kingdom, 25-28 June 2024, 2024, Oral Presentation, PRESENTED  URL
Charles Travis, Seachange: The ERC 4-Oceans Atlas, Warfare, Piracy & Fisheries, World Congress for Environmental History, Oulu, Finland, August 2024, 2024, Oral Presentation, PRESENTED  URL
Charles Travis, Stalin's quest for gold: the torgsin hard-currency shops and Soviet industrialization, Eurasian Geography and Economics, 2024, Review Article, PUBLISHED  DOI
Translating Topographies: The salience of Brian Friel's linguistic approach to landscape and toponymy regarding Ireland in, editor(s)Gerry O'Reilly , Place Naming, Identities and Geography: Critical Perspectives in a Globalizing and Standardizing World, Switzerland, Springer, 2023, pp30 , [Charles Travis], Book Chapter, PUBLISHED  DOI
  

Page 1 of 14
Preface in, editor(s)Sara Ansaloni (Department of Romance Languages, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, United States) and Eleonora Gioia (Department of Life and Environmental Sciences, Polytechnic University of Marche, Italy). , Geography, and the Poetics of Space: Tracing Historical Narratives Across Literary Landscape, Pavena, Italy, Il Sileno Edizioni, 2025, [Charles Travis], Book Chapter, IN_PRESS
Charles Travis, A Failed Vision of Empire: The Collapse of Manifest Destiny, 1845-1872, Historical Geography, 2025, Review Article, IN_PRESS
Charles Travis, -Whaling to the `Season-on-the-Line' -Mapping Herman Melville's Moby Dick (1851), International Geographical Congress Conference, Dublin, Ireland, 29 August 2024, 2024, Oral Presentation, PRESENTED
Charles Travis, THEODORE BURR AND THE BRIDGING OF EARLY AMERICA: THE MAN, FELLOW BRIDGE BUILDERS, AND THEIR FORGOTTEN TIMBER SPANS., Association of American Geographers Book Review, 2024, p1 - 3, Review Article, PUBLISHED
Charles Travis, The Digital Literary Atlas of Ireland, 1922-1948, Literary Dublin in the Digital Archive Symposium, Royal Irish Academy, 13 October 2022, 2022, Conference Paper, PRESENTED
Charles Travis, Big Tex: The Literary, Historical, Cultural & Natural Geographies of the Lone Star State., 2022 Virginia Garrett Lectures A Joint Meeting with International Map Collectors Society and Texas Map Society , University of Texas, Arlington, 6 October 2022, edited by Ben Huseman , 2022, Conference Paper, PRESENTED
Charles Travis, A Critical History of Texas, Book Review: Unsettled Land: From Revolution to Republic, The Struggle for Texas -cinematic prose, 1826, 2022, -, Notes: [https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/review/2022/12/24/unsettled-land-from-revolution-to-republic-the-struggle-for-texas-cinematic-prose/], Miscellaneous, PUBLISHED
Charles Travis, Grid-Space Myths: The U.S. Census, 1850-1900, 52 Annual Conference of Irish Geographers, TCD-Virtual, 19 May 2021, 2021, Conference Paper, PRESENTED
Charles Travis, 'Twilight of the Cowboy God: Larry McMurtry's Literary Geography', 2021, -, Notes: [https://blog.uta.edu/travisc/research/larry-mcmurtrys-literary-geography/], Digital research resource production, PUBLISHED
Charles Travis, Digital Humanities and GIS, First Year Seminar , University of Texas, Arlington, 1 October, 2019, College of Liberal Arts, University of Texas Arlington, 1 - 8pp, Invited Talk, PUBLISHED

  


Award Date
Master's Level Student Paper Award: Literature, Identity and Sense of Place in 1930s 'Free-State' Ireland, Association of American Geographers, Cultural Geography Specialty Group 2002
The digital and environmental humanities Geographical Information Systems (GIS) methodologies and applications.Historical Geography of North America and Mexico. Marine History. Literary, historical, cultural and environmental geographies of early twentieth century Ireland.