Call for Paper and Panel Contributions
The Challenges and Potentials of Contemporary Atlases
Association of American Geographer’s (AAG) Conference 2018
New Orleans, 10 – 14 April 2018
Atlases are evolving into culturally significant works for narratives and multiple forms of analyses. In this session we aim to bring people working and studying atlases, in both print and digital formats, together for a stimulating exchange of work and ideas at this panel. Through discussions of work and ideas regarding these developments the panel session should take up questions that directly engage atlases as cultural and scientific phenomena. In this sense, the session goes further than traditional conceptual issues about how to construct accurate representations of the world, produce it in book form and market it. Considerations of the diverse narrative forms taken by atlases requires reflections about the intended audience and the appropriate forms of representation. Following a consistent concept for narration, curation of the full range of maps and the subsequent process of data acquisition, processing and visualization are central in the creative productive process. Even after an atlas has been completed, ensuing work arises following an open access strategy regarding its data, ideally updated to changing content and knowledge about the world. Questions about analysis are linked to these conceptual questions. The complex challenges for the creation of a modern atlas are unique. From narration, curation and data/process access many questions occupy the creator of an atlas product. This session aims to continue discussion started in 2017 at AAG sessions on atlases and facilitate continuted discussions about these different challenges. The panel session should also include anyone working on the creation of modern atlases, whether these are an actual atlas, atlas-like products in form of curated printed or digital forms of map-collections.
If you are interested in contributing to the session, please contact the organisers Francis Harvey (f_harvey@ifl-leipzig.de) and Benjamin Hennig (ben@hi.is).