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Annual Conference of the SEAA 17-18

Maps and Mapping in English-speaking Countries in the 17th and 18th Centuries
Annual Conference of the SEAA 17-18


Paris, France
Maps are multidimensional objects of study that entail scientific, artistic, political, diplomatic, military and economic stakes. On the scientific level, the cartographic techniques and their evolutions are related to the establishment of trades such as cartographers, geographers and land surveyors. Who makes maps, for which purpose and for whom are questions to consider in order to apprehend these documents. Secretly-used maps need to be distinguished from printed and circulated ones. The former are instruments in the hands of governments in the context of peace negotiations and military operations – as was the case for the maps on which the French and the Americans relied during the American Revolutionary War – but also in the context of the exploration and conquest of new territories, among which Northern and Southern America, as well as Africa and India. Most of the time, maps have been made public in books destined to a literate audience, but their degree of accuracy and their level of artistry need to be assessed.It can thus be considered that maps create spaces as much as they reflect them. Maps also circulate as separate objects such as terrestrial globes. This requires to think about the manufacturing of objects and the printing of maps but also to ponder over their commercialization, dissemination, exhibition in curiosity cabinets as well as their circulation in European and American learned societies.
Venue: Université Paris-Diderot
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