HIST 2391 - From Terra Incognita to Territories of Nation-States: Early American History in Two Dozen Maps

(crosslisted) AMST 2391
(ALC-AS, HST-AS) (CA-AG, HA-AG, LA-AG)

Fall. 3 credits. Student option grading.

J. Parmenter.

This course engages the rich cartographic record of colonial North America via an in-depth analysis of two dozen iconic maps. Integrating visual and textual analysis, students will assess human representations of space across cultural boundaries, explore change over time in the mapmaking practices of indigenous peoples and various European intruders, and study the evolving relationship between cartography and power, attending particularly to the process by which mapping promoted a revolutionary new understanding of American geography as composed of the bounded territories of nation-states. (HPE, HNA)