This semester the Keck Center Student monitors will be using their time at the front desk to contribute to an ongoing digital humanities project. They will all be reading John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces and using digital mapping technology to represent all the places mentioned and visited in the novel, which is set in New Orleans.

Using maps in the humanities has risen in popularity lately. At Stanford University their Spatial History Project has used maps to explore Brazilian literature, Chinese migrant railroad workers, Chilean ecological issues, and many other fascinating topics. Here at Colgate, Carolyn Guile of the Department of Art and Art History has used maps to help her students explore historic architecture.

While these projects have been fruitful, their application within a class structure has can be difficult. The steep learning curve required to produce a map can be challenging for students, and take away from the time normally allotted for studying the primary course topic. Given that most mapping platforms are produced for use in other fields, no concise guide of how to use a map for a humanities class has been developed.

The goal of this project is not only to produce a mapped representation of a novel, but to also work out the possible stumbling blocks that could prevent a similar project to be integrated within the class. The aim is to produce the necessary guides and information for faculty and students to engage in a similar endeavor without having to spend hours of class time learning a new technology. The Keck Center will also have the ability to support similar project and trained staff to give technical support as needed.

We will be exploring different platforms, including Google Maps and ArcGIS Online. The student workers will also write about their experience for the Keck Center Blog and newsletter, to explain their own personal feelings about the positives and negatives of the project. By the end of the semester, we hope to provide a comprehensive guide to a humanities-based digital mapping project on the Keck Center web site.

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By Vika Abramova
Russian Language Intern

Why do Russians chant “gorko” (bitter) at a wedding reception? 

At the beginning of December 2014 my brother Anton got married and had a wedding reception back in my home city of Perm, Russia. I decided to arrange a skype session between my Intermediate Russian students, the newlyweds and the guests at the wedding reception involving the students in real-life cultural experience.

In Russia, weddings tend to be done on a grand scale. The reception of a Russian wedding typically takes place in a restaurant or the home of the bride or groom’s family and tend to last more than one day with the average being about two days. A Russian wedding is a great celebration with plenty of food, drinks, toasting, and dancing. A toastmaster, or “tamada”, is hired for the reception to conduct toasts, supervise games, and entertain the guests.

Both the newlyweds and the students were excited to meet via video. The couple was pleased to receive congratulations across thousands of miles while the students were happy to practice their Russian speaking skills congratulating my brother, his wife and all the guests with this special occasion. The Skype to the newlyweds was a lot of fun. The Russian students raised cups with juice to toast the newlyweds and proposed long toasts according to Russian tradition. The students also learned about some of the traditions at Russian weddings.

As the students finished making toasts one of the guests at the reception suddenly yelled out the word “Gor’ko” (bitter) to the newlyweds and the couple started to kiss each other. I asked the puzzled students to support the guests with chanting the same word, over and over again, and explained the tradition afterwards. No Russian wedding can go without people yelling “Gor’ko” to the bride and groom. This is not a sign of displeasure at the food: it is a signal, after which bride and groom must stand up and kiss each other. The Bitter Kiss is a Russian wedding tradition. For the first toast held, the guests will drink from their glasses and then they will start chanting “Gor’ko” (meaning that the drink is bitter) and the couple then have to kiss to make the drink “sweet.”

Guests usually shout “Gor’ko” after every toast or just when they want the couple to kiss. So, every five or 10 minutes one of the guests will begin chanting: “Gor’ko! Gor’ko! Gor’ko!” The rest of the guests will join in. Once they made the newlyweds kiss, everybody begins counting very slowly to see how long the kiss will last. It is generally considered that the more the guests yell “Gor’ko”, the happier the couple’s life will be

Congratulations to Anton and Lena! Wishing that your marriage will be as happy and beautiful as your wedding.

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