Mapping the Early Modern World: Writing-Intensive Seminar

3 units

Societies use maps not just to see the world, but also to assign meaning and order to space: both nearby spaces and spaces on the other side of the world. In this seminar, we will study how maps were created, circulated, and interpreted between the sixteenth and eighteenth century, when Europeans came into contact with new regions throughout the world and reshaped their own backyards through the rise of the modern state and the development of national identity.