Myths of Continents raised the issue of power in relation to the ways in which space is imagined/constructed. In particular, the reading historicizes geographical categories for dividing the world (East, West, Asia, America, Africa, etc…) in order to point out their relative elasticity and how this trait comes to function in relation to (nationalist) ideology. […]
Gendered Developmentalism in Eurocentric Cartography
Today’s introductory readings from Lewis & Wigen explore, as well as critique, Orientalist cartographic discourses of East vs. West, epistemological object vs. rational mind. In mobilizing the map as not only image but also metaphor, the authors dismantle, while not entirely rejecting, this Cartesian dualism and its Enlightenment assumptions about knowledge and reason. For Lewis […]
Why Boundaries?
Martin Lewis and Karen Wigen in “The Myth of Continents: A Critique of Metageography” address important questions regarding the world’s geography and the way in which it shapes people’s understanding of the world. Despite being commonly accepted principles, geographic divisions of the world such as countries and continents can be incredibly misleading. Thus, these spatial concepts […]
Windows of the World, Shenzhen
Link to zoom-in to map: https://youimg1.c-ctrip.com/target/tg/222/367/489/2430554cec634878b359a5ea0bda3853.jpg
The Necessity of Categories
I’m interested in exploring two important points that Lewis and Wigen make that I feel are a bit overshadowed by their otherwise enlightening undoing of the logic of the geographical divisions we often take for granted today. The first is that “the main problem with abandoning a set structure of nonproblematic geographical entities, in exchange for an […]
NYC Digital Humanities Week
Hi everyone, NYC Digital Humanities week is Feb. 6-10. There are a ton of free workshops — including some on mapping! Thought you might be interested in checking it out. NYCDH Week By the way, is there a way we can add a new category (like “events” or “resources” or “interesting links”) for things we […]
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