Whose City is it? Maps and Plans in Understanding Urban Spatiality in the Audiencia of Guatemala

When administrators and landowners of the eighteenth-century Audiencia of Guatemala incorporated maps and urban plans into their reports and planning, it was with an eye towards demonstrating or imagining the spaces of cities, towns, villages and their hinterlands. In this talk, I consider how visualizations of urban plans and their hinterlands and building elevations - including for government structures, schools, and private houses - can help scholars think about when and how collective and individual public and private spaces, reveal or open ways to study the different communities and different groups that cohabited - or not - during this period.

Jordana Dym is Professor of History at Skidmore College, where she holds the Kenan Chair of Liberal Studies.  Her research and teaching interests include Latin America, the history of cartography, book history and public history. Her work in the history of cartography focuses on the mapping of Central America, particularly Guatemala, and the intersection between Western travel and cartography. As chair of trustees of the International Society for the History of the Map (2019-2023), she organized three symposia and two workshops for junior professionals, including in Montevideo, Uruguay and Berlin, Germany. She is editor of Imago Mundi since 2022 and a founding editor of H-Maps. Since 2022, she has been co-editor-in-chief of the map history journal Imago Mundi.  Recent publications include Mapping Travel: The Origins and Conventions of Western Journey MapsBrill Research Perspectives in Map History (Brill, 2021) and, with Carla Lois, ‘Bound Images: maps, books, and reading in material and digital contextsmaps, books, and reading in material and digital contexts,’ Word & Image 37(2): 119-141. She is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, and will spend Spring 2025 as a visiting scholar at Warwick University.

All welcome – This event is free, but booking is required.

Details on how to join this session will be sent to all registered attendees 24 hours in advance.  Booking will therefore close the day before the scheduled date.