Global Urban Humanities/Future Histories Lab

Location: David Brower Center, 2150 Allston Way, Berkeley, CA

Date/Time: 11/1/2013

Is a map a mirror, a window, a weapon, or a work of art?

From lines drawn in clay to geographic information systems (GIS), humans for millenia have constructed an understanding of the world through visual representations of space. At this interdisciplinary symposium, mapmakers, users, and critics from the worlds of science, urban planning, architecture, history, and new media examined the ways maps work.

“Mapping and Its Discontents” was part of the Global Urban Humanities Initiative, a major 3.5-year project supported by the Mellon Foundation. In this joint project, the UCLA Urban Humanities, the College of Environmental Design, and the Division of Arts & Humanities collaborated to bring together scholars and practitioners across disciplines to investigate humans and the environments they inhabit and shape.