Time in Space: Representing Time in Maps

“Time in Space: Representing Time in Maps” brings together senior scholars and curators to explore a major challenge for mapmaking: how can time be conveyed through the representation of geographical features? The visual techniques that we take for granted today, such as the stratigraphic map, required deep shifts in how people understood physical space, the passage of time, and aesthetics. Participants represent a broad range of academic backgrounds including geography, history, and art history, and will treat a variety of contexts, from East Asia to Europe to the Americas. This conference will pave the way for an illustrated volume with the University of Chicago Press, the leading publisher in history of science and cartography.

Members of the public are warmly invited to participate in the opening session, “Mapping Time,” on the afternoon of Friday, November 10, 2017.

Conference Agenda:

Friday, November 10: Open to the Public

PLEASE NOTE: Attendance is free but registration is required prior to the event. Please register HERE.

1:15 pm: Welcome and Introduction Kären Wigen & Caroline Winterer, Stanford University

Session 1: Mapping Time
Half-hour papers, plus 15 minutes Q&A each

1:30 pm-2:15 pm: Lifting the Veil of Time: Maps, Metaphor, and Antiquarianism (17th-18th c.)
Veronica Della Dora, Royal Holloway, University of London

2:15 pm-3 pm: The Art and Science of Deep Time, 1800-1900
Caroline Winterer, Stanford University

3 pm-3:45 pm: Mapping Time in the 20th (and 21st) Century
Bill Rankin, Yale University

3:45 pm-4:30 pm: Audience discussion

4:45: Public reception at Stanford Humanities Center

Saturday, November 11: Closed Session

Session 2: Narrative

9 am-9:45 am: History in Maps from the Aztec Empire
Barbara Mundy, Fordham University

9:45 am-10:30 am: Parallel Process? Historical Mapping Evolves in Early Modern Japan
Kären Wigen, Stanford University

10:30 am-11:15 am Coffee Break

Session 3: Unfoldings

11:15 am-noon: From From To To: A Map of Language
Daniel Rosenberg, University of Oregon

noon-12:45 pm: The Legacy of Matteo Ricci in East Asian World Maps of the Nineteenth Century
Richard Pegg, The MacLean Collection

1 pm-2 pm: Lunch at Stanford Humanities Center

Session 4: Journeys

2:15 pm-3 pm Time Traveling: Representing and Retracing the Past in American Travelers’ Maps and Guidebooks
James R. Akerman, The Newberry Library

3 pm-3:45 pm Mapping the Past in American Culture
Susan Schulten, University of Denver

3:45 pm-4 pm: Break

4 pm-4:45 pm: Looking Ahead: Discussion between Invited Interlocutors and Panelists
Mary Laur, University of Chicago Press and Neil Safier, John Carter Brown Library

We are grateful for the sponsorship of these Stanford units: the David Rumsey Map Center; the Department of History; and the Stanford Humanities Center.

For further information, please contact the conference’s graduate coordinator, Charlotte Thun-Hohenstein