Conquering the World through Cartography — The Imperialist Turn in 19th and 20th Century Mapping

The 21st century map image of continents beyond Europe is still decisively shaped by inherited aesthetics and content dating back to the turn from explorative to imperialist cartography. The symposium welcomes contributions (papers and posters) to analyse aspects of the imperialist Global North hegemony by investigating topographic mapping, hydrographic charting, and thematic mapping in personal, institutional, and regional case studies. The regional scope of the conference are overseas continents and seascapes within the time frame from about the Napoleonic wars to the European de-colonization in the mid-twentieth century (1940s to 1960s).