The Oxford Seminars in Cartography (TOSCA)

Artful maps: exploring the visual culture of cartography

The Oxford Seminars  in Cartography Conference: 25–26 September 2023

Cartography has long been recognised as art and science. This conference explores how art affects cartography’s process, products, and personnel. Ranging over all types of map, all areas of the world, and all time periods, the conference considers the relationship between art and cartography.

Recordings of the conference papers will be uploaded to this site in the near future.

Map Readings – 'Copyright and cartography: history, law and the circulation of geographical knowledge'

Thursday 9 November 2023 4.30–6pm (GMT)

Online event

Isabella Alexander (University of Technology, Sydney) in conversation with Elizabeth Baigent (School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford)

Watch the recording of Map Readings

Cartographers, craftsmen and artists: collaboration and cross-pollination in the creation of nautical charts

Šima Krtalić (MA in Archaeological Materials Sciences; PhD candidate in the History of Sciences, University of Lisbon)

Thursday 1 December 2022

In this talk, Šima Krtalić will approach manuscript nautical cartography from the angle of artisanal practices, exploring the methods used by chart makers to produce exquisitely intricate depictions of the marine space. The origins of key techniques in chart making will be discussed, as well as the occasionally contentious relationships between cartographers and miniaturists working together to produce luxury atlases.

Watch the recording of this talk (YouTube)

‘Please use the postcode’: navigating the past, present, and future conservation needs of the Hereford Mappa Mundi

Andrew Honey (Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford)

Thursday 2 February 2023

Watch the recording of this talk (YouTube)

Map Readings: ‘Encounters in the New World: Jesuit cartography of the Americas’

Mirela Altić in conversation with Elizabeth Baigent

Mirela Altić (University of Zagreb) and Elizabeth Baigent (School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford)

Thursday 23 February 2023

Watch the recording of this talk (YouTube)

‘An illustrated encyclopaedia of this great and varied universe’: Mapping the Crystal Palace at Sydenham, 1854–1936

 Madeline Hewitson (Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford)

Thursday 4 May 2023
4.30–6pm (BST)

In this seminar, Madeline Hewitson will examine a number of ground plans of the Crystal Palace at Sydenham, a private enterprise based on the Great Exhibition of 1851 which sat at the intersection of Victorian arts education and the entertainment industry. These ground plans reveal the Palace curators' intricate strategies for educating visitors about the history of empires and the interlinked progress of art and design.

Watch the recording of this talk (YouTube)

TOSCA Field Trip: A jolly for Peter Jolly: maps from the British Cartographic Society Awards collection

Bodleian Map Room Team   

Thursday 25 May 2023
4.30–6pm

TOSCA Field Trip – Geological maps of the British islands

Thursday 21 October
Nina Morgan (Oxford University Museum of Natural History)

Mapping practices in Amazonian borders: indigenous knowledge and guesswork in Percy Harrison Fawcett's explorations

Thursday 25 November
André Reyes Novaes (Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro)

Watch the recording of this talk (YouTube)

Writing the life and work of John Byron Plato: serendipity, challenges, and implications

Thursday 3 February
Mark Monmonier (Syracuse University)

The thinking hand: sketch maps and geography in late 19th-century education

Thursday 17 February

Carla Lois (Universidad de Buenos Aires)

Map Readings – ‘Time in maps’

Tuesday 3 March

Kären Wigen and Caroline Winterer (Stanford University) in conversation with Elizabeth Baigent (School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford)

Watch the recording of this talk (YouTube)

Maps of the European Historic Towns Atlas series

Maps of the European Historic Towns Atlas I: Germany

Thursday 28 April
Daniel Stracke (Universität Münster)

Watch the recording of this talk (YouTube)

Maps of the European Historic Towns Atlas II: Great Britain

Thursday 5 May
Keith Lilley (Queen’s University Belfast)

Watch the recording of this talk (YouTube)

Maps of the European Historic Towns Atlas III: Ireland

Thursday 12 May
Sarah Gearty (Royal Irish Academy)

Watch the recording of this talk (YouTube)

Maps of the European Historic Towns Atlas IV: East Central Europe

Thursday 26 May
Katalin Szende (Central European University)

Watch the recording of this talk (YouTube)

Election illusions: the 2020 US presidential race and the perils of politics as a game of maps  

Thursday 17 December
Garrett Dash Nelson (Leventhal Map & Education Center, Boston Public Library)

• Watch the recording of this talk (YouTube)

Map Readings: 'Cartography – the ideal and its history'

Thursday 4 February
Matthew Edney (University of Southern Maine/History of Cartography Project) in conversation with Elizabeth Baigent (School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford) 

• Watch the recording of Cartography: the ideal and its history (YouTube)

A view from the road: travel mapping and American identity

Thursday 11 March
James Akerman (Hermon Dunlap Smith Center for the History of Cartography, The Newberry Library, Chicago)

• Watch the recording of A view from the road: travel mapping and American identity (YouTube)

Women and maps: an online conference exploring the place of women and the feminine in maps and mapping  

Thursday 25 March

• Watch the recording of this conference (YouTube)

Shipwrecks and treasure in the manuscript maps of William Hack

Thursday 20 May
Chet Van Duzer (The Lazarus Project, University of Rochester) 

• Watch the recording of this talk (YouTube)

Revision and erasure: indigenous presence and maps of southern Patagonia, 1670 – 1750

Thursday 3 June
Katherine Parker (Barry Lawrence Ruderman Antique Maps Inc/Hakluyt Society)

• Watch the recording of this talk (YouTube)