Call for Papers:
Newberry Library Symposium, June 20-21, 2013, Chicago, IL
“Pictures from an Expedition: Aesthetics of 19th-century Cartographic Exploration in the Americas”

We seek historians, art historians, geographers, and scholars of visual culture for a symposium to be held in Chicago at the Newberry Library on June 20-21, 2013. The symposium will consider the aesthetics and visual culture of 19th-century cartographic exploration in the Americas. The nineteenth century represented a high point in mapping expeditions at the hemispheric level. These ostensibly scientific expeditions, which charted territories often in support of nation building projects, produced vast amounts of visual and artistic materials. This symposium will focus on this visual material addressing such questions as: What kinds of 19th-century visual practices and technologies of seeing do these materials engage? How does scientific knowledge get translated into the visual and disseminated to the public? Can looking at mapping hemispherically challenge a distinction between North American and South/Central/Latin American methodologies or practices of exploration? We are interested in all forms of visual representation, including maps, sketches, drawings, landscape paintings, photography, lithography, etc. Scholars focusing on visual aspects of indigenous mappings, polar or Alaskan exploration, and Amazonian South America are particularly encouraged to submit proposals.

The symposium is generously funded by a grant from the Terra Foundation for American Art. Participants’ travel and lodging will be covered.

Proposals including a title and abstract (maximum 500 words) should be sent by Monday, January 14, 2013 to:

Ernesto Capello, History, Macalester College, ecapello@macalester.edu
Julia Rosenbaum, Art History, Bard College, rosenbau@bard.edu