[ecrea] Mapping in Arts and Humanities Research: Workshops and Symposium

MAPPING IN ARTS AND HUMANITIES RESEARCH

TWO WORKSHOPS AND A SYMPOSIUM

June 14th, 21st, and 27th, 2017

Jointly hosted by the Department of Film Studies, King’s College London 
(KCL) and the Centre for Multidisciplinary and Intercultural Inquiry, 
University College London (UCL)

Generously funded by the London Arts and Humanities Partnership


RATIONALE

Theories and practices of mapping have been increasingly prominent and 
influential in arts and humanities research in the past twenty years. 
The histories of art, architecture, film, literature, and other cultural 
forms have been retold from geographical, spatial perspectives, across 
disciplinary lines, by Giuliana Bruno, Denis Cosgrove, Tom Conley, 
Thomas Da Costa Kauffmann, Rob Kitchin, Franco Moretti, Ricardo Padron, 
and Todd Presner, to name just a few. Drawing on rich influences in 
geography, sociology, architecture and urban planning, these scholars 
and others have used maps to rethink art, culture, and the humanities, 
or vice versa. As such, mapping has become one of the key tools by which 
arts and humanities researchers have collaborated and innovated, and by 
which they have interacted with the social sciences.

Many arts and humanities researchers today seek to incorporate maps and 
mapping in their research, and yet provision of training and 
opportunities for critical reflection are rare in this specific 
cross-disciplinary area. This is despite the fact that digital 
technologies have made mapping increasingly feasible and sophisticated, 
in technical terms, even for those without specialist cartographic 
training. Mapping has also become increasingly informative and rewarding 
methodologically – e.g. what Todd Presner calls “thick mapping” - as a 
complement to, or, for some, even a replacement for, certain, more 
traditional aspects of research.

Accordingly, in June 2017, KCL and UCL will jointly host a series of 
workshops and a symposium in order to provide opportunities for 
experimentation with, and reflection on, maps, mapping, their usefulness 
and value, and the complex and challenging issues they raise.


THE WORKSHOPS

Workshop 1) Wednesday, June 14th, 2017, 10am-3pm, King’s College London, 
Strand, London WC2R 2LS
Room K4U.12, King’s Building, Strand Campus
Workshop 2) Wednesday, June 21st, 2017, 10am-3pm, University College 
London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT
Room to be confirmed

These workshops will be aimed primarily at current PhD students in any 
arts and humanities or social science discipline, from across the UK, 
but with a limited number of places also set aside for postdoctoral 
researchers and others. To attend the workshops, it is necessary to 
register in advance, and it is also necessary to sign up to attend both 
workshops (rather than one or the other) as they are designed and will 
be delivered as a pair. No special expertise in mapping techniques or 
map analysis will be required. PhD students at any stage of their 
studies may reserve a place, whether they have a lot of experience with 
maps or very little.
The workshops will be led by the event co-organizers, Dr Mark Shiel at 
King’s on June 14th and Dr Roland-François Lack at UCL on June 21st. In 
these, Shiel and Lack will present their own research with maps, but 
they will invite those in attendance to pre-circulate and bring along 
and share maps with the group. The workshops will be practical, 
interactive and computer-based, relying on demonstrations and small 
group work. Hence, the workshops will provide an opportunity to present, 
examine, speculate on, and discuss a wide variety of maps in detail, 
benefiting from a variety of case studies and interpretations.
Attendance at the workshops is free of charge and light lunch will be 
provided. There is a limit on the number of places in the workshops - a 
maximum of 40 people, but some places are still available. Registration 
in advance is required.

Please register for the workshops here:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/mapping-in-arts-and-humanities-research-workshop-1-kcl-tickets-33363824096


THE SYMPOSIUM

On June 27th, 2017, KCL and UCL will co-host a one-day symposium with 
the aim of examining the use of maps in arts and humanities research and 
connections between mapping in the arts and humanities and in the social 
sciences. The symposium will be open to all. Providing an opportunity to 
reflect on the strengths, limitations, and methodological challenges and 
problems posed by maps and mapping, this symposium will feature 8 short 
papers by a variety of scholars and a keynote address.

The keynote address will be given by Professor Shannon Mattern of the 
New School for Social Research, in New York. Mattern is the author of 
The New Downtown Library: Designing with Communities (2017) and Deep 
Mapping the Media City (2015), both published by University of Minnesota 
Press, as well as numerous journal articles and book chapters. 
(http://www.wordsinspace.net/shannon/ )

The Symposium will be free of charge, although advance registration is 
required at the Eventbrite page below (please note the workshops and the 
symposium have separate Eventbrite pages and it is necessary to register 
for both separately, if you intend to attend all events).

Symposium Programme

Tuesday, June 27th, 2017
Venue: G22 Lecture Theatre, Pearson Building (North East Entrance), Main 
Quad, University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT

0930-1000 Welcome and opening comments, Roland-François Lack (UCL) and 
Mark Shiel (KCL)

1000-1130 Panel 1
•	Karen Smith (PhD student, Film Studies, KCL) – “Mapping London’s ‘Flea 
Pits’ from the 1970s to the 1990s”
•	Anna Viola Sborgi (PhD student, Film Studies, KCL) – “Mapping 
regeneration: London’s Docklands and screen media”
•	Jina Lee (PhD student, University of the Arts, London) – “Drawing ‘New 
Maps’ of New Malden: Ethnographical enquiry into the Joseonjok people by 
means of drawing practice”

1130-1150 Coffee break

1150-1300 Keynote Address, Shannon Mattern (Associate Professor of Media 
Studies, New School for Social Research, New York), “Mapping’s 
intelligent agents: From machine learning to echolocation”

1300-1400 Lunch

1400-1530 Panel 2
•	Maud Borie (Postdoctoral Research Associate, Geography, KCL) – 
“Visualizing the intangible? Exploring the potential of GIS and creative 
practices to map (for) resilience”
•	Michele Ferretti (PhD student, Geography, KCL) – “Invisible Cities: 
Repurposing machine learning and coding practices in the context of 
spatial data”
•	Arooj Khan (PhD student, Sociology, University of Birmingham) – 
“Mapping children’s lives and geographies: how far have we come?”

1530-1550 Coffee break

1550-1710 Panel 3
•	Rod Stoneman (Professor Emeritus, John Huston Centre for Film and 
Digital Media, National University of Ireland Galway) – “A New map of Rome”
•	Maurizio Cinquegrani (Lecturer in Film, University of Kent) – 
“Cinematic landscapes of the Holocaust in Poland”

1710-1750 Roundtable

1750-1800 Closing comments and thanks

To register for the symposium, please visit:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/mapping-in-arts-and-humanities-research-symposium-tickets-33364145056


ABOUT THE ORGANISERS

Mark Shiel is Reader in Film Studies and Urbanism in the Department of 
Film Studies at King’s College London. He has published widely on the 
subject of cinema and cities, most recently his monograph Hollywood 
Cinema and the Real Los Angeles (Reaktion Books/University of Chicago 
Press, 2012).

Roland-François Lack is a Senior Lecturer in the French Department at 
UCL, where he teaches nineteenth-century literature and 
twentieth-century film. He is the author of numerous works on 
Lautréamont, Kristeva, Tel Quel, and the nouvelle vague, and he is the 
author and curator of the celebrated website cinetourist.net

The organisers gratefully acknowledge the support of the London Arts and 
Humanities Partnership, which is in turn funded by the Arts and 
Humanities Research Council.

These events will also form part of the first year’s activities of the 
new London Urban Media Research Network, a collaboration of KCL, UCL, 
the LSE, and Birkbeck College aimed at coordinating and increasing 
research activity on the interaction of cities and media, broadly defined.


---------------
The COMMLIST
---------------
This mailing list is a free service offered by Nico Carpentier. Please
use it responsibly and wisely.
--
To subscribe or unsubscribe, please visit http://commlist.org/
--
Before sending a posting request, please always read the guidelines at
http://commlist.org/
--
To contact the mailing list manager:
Email: (nico.carpentier /at/ vub.ac.be)
URL: http://nicocarpentier.net
---------------