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David Rumsey Map Center Virtual Tour
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Upcoming Live Online Talks
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Friday, October 23, 2020 | California Map Society - Rumsey Map Center 2019-20 Essay Competition Winner Arman Kassam, speaking on "Mappaemundi as Self-Portrait:
Deference and Dissidence in the Worlds of Guaman Poma and Urbano Monte"
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The
California Map Society, in partnership with the Center, sponsors a
student essay competition each year. The essay winner will receive a cash prize of $1,000. The winner for the 2019-20 competition is Arman Kassam. We are delighted that he will be speaking on his winning essay and is our
speaker for October.
In his talk, Arman Kassam plans on discussing the fascinating intersections between two different amateur cartographers on separate ends of the early 16th-century Spanish Empire. The stories of Urbano Monte, a Milanese nobleman engaged in a personal project
concerning universal knowledge, and Guaman Poma, a Quechua nobleman who subversively asserted his right to territory in the Nueva Corónica, intertwine in unexpected ways. Both came from noble lineages,
lived in territories recently brought under Habsburg control, and cared deeply about humanist erudition. Importantly, both also found in the world map a useful medium for their projects of political power and erudition. Rather than merely showing the differences
of their interests, these amateur world maps reflect back on their authors as self-portraits, testaments to individuals finding themselves in an ever-globalizing world.
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For more on the talk, speaker, schedule, and to register, click the button below.
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Friday, November 6, 2020 | Ana Pulido Rull: "Mapping Indigenous Land: Native Land Grants in Colonial New Spain"
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Left: Land grant map of Huixquilucan, Tenayuca, 1594. Archivo General de la Nación, Mexico.
Right: Land grant map of Coatlichan, Texcoco, 1579. Archivo General de la Nación, Mexico.
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Between 1536 and 1601, at the request of the colonial administration, indigenous artists from colonial Mexico crafted more
than 200 maps to be used as evidence in litigation over land distribution. These land grant maps, or mapas de mercedes de tierra, tell the stories of hundreds of Natives and Spaniards who engaged in
legal proceedings either to request land, to oppose a petition, or to negotiate its terms. Ana Pulido Rull spent various years examining these striking painted maps and reading the court records from the land disputes at the Mexican National Archives.
In this talk, the author will narrate some of the stories she found most remarkable and will show that these maps did more than simply record the disputed territories for lawsuits: They also enabled indigenous communities to translate their ideas about the
contested spaces into visual form; offered arguments for the defense of these spaces; and, in some cases, even helped protect indigenous land against harmful requests.
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For more on the talk, speaker, schedule, and to register, click the button below.
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Friday, December 4, 2020 | Nick Kanas: "Mapping the Heavens: Celestial Cartography from Ancient to Modern Times"
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People have observed the night sky since antiquity in an effort to predict celestial events and understand their place in
the universe. Many cultures organized the stars into heavenly patterns that reflected issues important to them. In ancient Greece, the stars were placed in constellations that were viewed as allegorical representations of classical Greek heroes, heroines,
and monsters. These images formed the backbone of the cosmological and constellation maps that appeared in stunningly beautiful star atlases of the 17th and 18th Centuries. But telescopic and scientific needs called for more accuracy in star placement, and
gradually the heavenly bodies were positioned in increasingly accurate coordinate systems superimposed on the sky. Constellation images became redundant, and they have largely disappeared in today’s modern star atlases.
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For more on the talk, speaker, schedule, and to register, click the button below.
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National History Day: Website & "This Old Map" Booklet
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National History Day:
We've noticed that students tend to shy away from using maps in their historical research, preferring to engage with texts and images. It's what they're comfortable using. To help students understand how maps can be used as primary sources, we partnered with
our colleagues at Branner Earth Sciences Library to develop programming and content for National
History Day, an organization that encourages original history research amongst middle- and high-school students. We've created a website to help students analyze historic maps and use them in their research. While it's aimed at National History
Day participants, we think it may be of use to anyone who is learning about or teaching with maps. You can visit the website here: https://exhibits.stanford.edu/nhdmaps.
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This Old Map:
Why do we love looking at old maps? To try to answer the question, and inspire others to see the beauty of old maps, our librarian, Andrea Renner, created a comics-inspired booklet. Written for a broad audience, it explores what maps can teach us and how they
shape our thinking. You can find it here: https://www.flipsnack.com/mapguide/this-old-map-1pao35mzhm.html.
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The Center Featured on the Web
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Ongoing Virtual Exhibition: Data Visualization and the Modern Imagination
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On September 25, 2020, we held the online opening of our latest virtual exhibition,
Data Visualization and the Modern Imagination, with a talk from guest curator
RJ Andrews. Click
here to explore the exhibition.
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