What Do Maps Do? Understanding Visual Representations of Space

Catalog description

Maps can be taken lightly, as innocent illustrations of space, but there is so much more to them than meets the eye. In this course, we will learn how to deal with maps as complicated cultural objects for the social sciences. By learning how to “read” maps, or “make them speak”, we will navigate issues of knowledge and power as they manifest in these documents throughout history and until the present day. We will broaden our knowledge of the Americas, at the same time as we reflect on some classic and urgent topics of history and border making. The class will include a variety of primary sources, case studies, and theory readings that will help us deconstruct maps as artifacts of knowledge and power, but also historical fictions, and hopeful avenues for imagining different futures. Expanding our knowledge about these issues can be reflective and urgent. This course will be conducted in English. Maps and other primary sources may vary in their original language, but this will pose no complication for their treatment in class. Our course is divided into five modules, each of them devoted to different things a map can do. We will start with the importance of mapping for colonial processes and imperialism in the Americas, and its relation with cartography as “the science of princes”. Later, we will analyze how maps built nation-states, at the same time they gained their popularity as objective, scientific pieces of information. Next, we will evaluate the political role of mapping and mapmaking in contexts of war and peace, debunking their so-called neutrality. Finally, once we know what maps have done in the past, we will collectively think about how can they help us build futures. This course has as its main goal to improve and develop your visual and analytical skills as well as active discussion during class. With that in mind, all of our sessions will be…