*** The CfP is now closed; we coridally invite the audience to join the seminar ***

IDEA:

The general term of “cartography” is supposed to encourage the representatives and researchers of different branches of humanities, art and science to present some specific approaches to the interdisciplinary idea of the processes, ways and functions of “mapping” and of the “map” itself in the broader context of “cartography”.

Cartography as the art of creating/ writing and reading the maps – considered in the etymological sense of τέχνη – implies both using technical skills (for practical purpose) and knowledge (theoretical, philosophical, intuitional, perceptual, etc.) on which the process of mapping is based on.

Moreover, trying to define the “map” we face various ways of its making  and heterogenous data it describes and compares (natural, scientific, geographical, historical, political, cultural etc.) as well as various media it uses in the process (visual – 2D or 3D – auditory, even haptic, imaginary, mental ones, etc.).

We used to apply the term of “map” to name a scientific or/ and cultural (incl. aesthetic) artifact which operates as a narrative model based on the adequate/ proper and conventional relationship between the image, the sign and the legend/ the map keys. Its main function is to map, to transfer or – in a more general way – to represent reality (or some parts/ apects of it) in/ thanks to a specific scale.

AREAS OF RESEARCH:

Now it is time to consider the category of “map” in its interdisciplinary context: in history, in geography, in art (and its history), in literature, in philosophy, in natural science, in psychology and cognitive science and so on.

The purpose of the seminar is to facilitate the inter- as well as intradisciplinary discussion on the status, aspects and meaning of mapping in science, philosophy and cartography (as mentioned above).

The topics addressed during the seminar will include (but not be limited to) the following:

- Representational character of a map - its cognitive, narrative, poetic, artistic or aesthetic dimension and genesis,

- Problem of relationship between the centre and peripheries (the spaces of exclusion; heterotopias as the limits of cartography).

- Geopolitics/the politics of cartography (rethinking the political relevance of mapping: nomads, strangers, passers-by, etc.).