The Oxford Seminars in Cartography (TOSCA)
TOSCA (The Oxford Seminars in Cartography) are a long established part of Oxford’s academic life and are open to everyone with an interest in maps and mapping.
We welcome academics, map curators, students, and amateur enthusiasts to learn and ask questions about a wide variety of maps, past and present.
The sessions are convened by Elizabeth Baigent, Reader in Oxford’s School of Geography, and Nick Millea, the Bodleian Library’s Map Curator.
Most of our meetings are online to permit as many people as possible to join, but participants at our in-person field trips can study original maps in locations in and around Oxford. Online meetings are mainly in lecture format, but annual Map Reading sessions allow a conversational exploration of a recently published book on maps.
You would be most welcome to join us!
Programme for 2024–25
The programme has now finished for this academic year.
The 2025–6 programme will be announced in due course. Recordings of past events can be found below.
Further information and how to book
To book a place on any of these seminars, visit the TOSCA webpage on our Visit website.
For further details, please contact: nick.millea@bodleian.ox.ac.uk or 01865 287119.
The Oxford Seminars in Cartography are supported by:
- The Friends of TOSCA
- The Bodleian Libraries
- The School of Geography and the Environment
- The Charles Close Society
- Lovell Johns Ltd
Past events
Discussing decolonising cartographic heritage: theory, maps, and Dutch Brazil
Margriet Hoogvliet and Anouk de Vries (Universiteit van Amsterdam)
Thursday 13 February 2025
Map Readings: ‘Routledge Handbook of Cartographic Humanities’
Tania Rossetto and Laura Lo Presti (Università degli Studi di Padova) in conversation with Elizabeth Baigent (School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford)
Thursday 30 January 2025
Watch the recording of this event
Vernacular environmental cartographies: landscapes and navigation unseen in Lacanjá Chansayab, Chiapas, México
Luz Martin del Campo (City University of New York)
Thursday 28 November 2024
Watch the recording of this event
Trans-Pacific maritime routes and Peruvian agency in three 17th-century nautical atlases
Carolina Martínez (Universidad Nacional de San Martín-CONICET, Argentina)
Thursday 15 May 2025
Watch the recording of this event
Unmapping Africa in the Age of the Enlightenment
Petter Hellström (Uppsala Universitet)
Thursday 29 May 2025
Watch a recording of this event
Geography and Catholic censorship in Europe at the end of the sixteenth century
Jean-Marc Besse (L’École des hautes études en sciences sociales, Paris)
This event was postponed. It will be rescheduled for 2025–6
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.
Watch the recording from day one of the conference
Watch the recording from day two of the conference
Map Readings – 'Copyright and cartography: history, law and the circulation of geographical knowledge'
Thursday 9 November 2023 4.30–6pm
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
Colonial counter-mappings: Learning from indigenous cartography in eighteenth-century America
Thursday 9 May 2024, 4.30–6pm
Online event
Martin Brückner, University of Delaware
Watch the recording of this talk
How did the chorographic tradition end? Picture maps and measurement in Renaissance France
Thursday 13 June 2024, 4.30–6pm
Anthony Gerbino, University of Manchester
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)
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)
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)
