-------- Original Message --------
Subject:        call for papers: Mercator conference, Belgium, April 2012
Date:   Sat, 14 May 2011 01:29:56 +0000
From:   Brendan Whyte <[log in to unmask]>
To:     AMC <[log in to unmask]>, IAG list <[log in to unmask]>,
Carto-soc <[log in to unmask]>, mapsL <[log in to unmask]>



*International conference Sint-Niklaas, Belgium 25-28 April, 2012*

**Cartography in the Age of Discovery

Mercator Revisited

*1st Announcement – Call for papers *

**

In celebration of the 500th anniversary of the birth of Gerard Mercator,
we are delighted to announce the international conference /‘Mercator
Revisited – Cartography in the Age of Discovery’/. The conference will
take place from April 25th till 28th, 2012 in the city of Sint-Niklaas,
Belgium, 15 km from the town of Rupelmonde where /Gerard de Kremer /was
born on the 5th of March 1512.

The conference focuses on the place of cartography in general and of
Mercator in specific in the 16th century. This Age of Discovery
presented mapmakers with both unprecedented opportunity and scientific
obligation to collect, record and categorise the world ‘as it was’. At
the same time, the greatest mapmakers of the era were also scientists,
craftsmen and humanists influenced by international politics, science
and philosophy. Their maps not only reflect the factual discoveries of
the time but also the environments within which the maps were produced.

Interest in Mercator’s work peaked with the Mercator Years of 1994 and
1995, when he was once more established as one of the most important
geographers in the history of early modern cartography. Relying on
information from explorers, Mercator created world maps of renowned
quality and precision. In the process he developed the Mercator
projection, in which lines of constant bearing are always straight, and
he coined the term ‘Atlas’.

Since the 1990’s, new lines of approach and research methods may have
been developed that can shed a new light on the work of Mercator and his
contemporaries. This conference aims to provide a forum for scholars who
are interested in the exchange of these new research findings and ideas.
It aims at giving a fresh impetus to interest in the subject and is open
to contributors with a background in a.o. geography, historical
cartography, history, art history or cultural heritage.

*
Topics:
*

The conference focuses on the following five main themes:

1. Science and technology as related to cartography in the age of
Mercator: surveying instruments and techniques, trigonometry, map
projections (and their implications for navigation) …

2. Mercator’s inspiration and cartographic output: his training, his
resources, comparative studies with other cartographic products of his
time …

3. Cartography in the Age of Discovery: impact of the expanding world
view and shifting territorial boundaries on map representations,
iconography of maps …

4. New ways of approaching cartographic heritage in view of new
techniques, preferably related to 16th century maps and globes

5. Mercator’s entourage, world view, philosophy and cosmology

In addition, contributions regarding other aspects of the life and work
of Mercator may be proposed.

*
Submissions:
*

Potential contributors are invited to submit abstracts (up to 500 words,
in English), describing original research. Deadline for submission of
abstracts is *September 1st, 2011*. In addition to abstracts, full-paper
submissions (up to 5000 words, in English) of original and unpublished
research may also be submitted for international peer review. Deadline
for submission of full papers is *October 1st, 2011*. All submissions
must be sent electronically via the online submission system.

A selection of high-quality submissions will be accepted for
presentation at the conference and included in the Conference
Proceedings, handed out during the event. The best peer-reviewed papers
will also be considered for publication in a special issue of The
Cartographic Journal centering on Mercator, to be published in late 2012.

*
Keynotes:
*

We are pleased to announce that keynote lectures will be delivered by
Prof. Jerry Brotton (Queen Mary, University of London), Prof. Mark
Monmonier (Syracuse University) and Dr. Thomas Horst (Universität der
Bundeswehr München).

*
*

*Contact: *[log in to unmask]
<mailto:[log in to unmask]>_

__
For more information please consult the conference website:
*www.mercatorconference2012.be
*