Cartography: Mapping Minds, Worlds, Territories

June 11, 13

Mapping is a hot topic in different fields, but still there is a lack of a shared methodology to approach various problems concerning mental, historical and actual maps: How and why do humans use maps to create, store and measure spatial knowledge? What can the history of cartography tell us about the global and local cultures that have produced maps, from antiquity to the middle ages, from the early modern to the modern periods, from the postmodern to the mapping practices and methods of the digital humanities? How do we deal with historical maps and/or their counterparts in verbal descriptions?

This workshop brings together scholars from a range of disciplines, including art history, geography, history, and literature, who are currently engaged in one way or another in what might generally be defined as the new interdisciplinary field of the history of cartography, inaugurated over thirty years ago by Woodward and Harley's ongoing “History of Cartography” project (University of Chicago Press). The goal of the workshop is to share and discuss both theoretical and practical reflections and insights, as well as new projects and new discoveries deriving from the current "work in progress" of a cohort of leading researchers in the field.

Given the nature and organization of the workshop, participation is by invitation only.

Co-sponsored by the Bibliotheca Hertziana, MPI for the History of Art, and the University of Notre Dame Rome Global Gateway.

Conveners: Theodore J. Cachey Jr. - Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures, Inaugural Academic Director University of Notre Dame Rome Global Gateway and Prof. Dr. Tanja Michalsky - Geschäftsführende Direktorin der Bibliotheca Hertziana, Max-Planck-Institut für Kunstgeschichte

Mapping MInds, Worlds, Territories website for workshop participants.