Envisioning America in Maps and Art

FAIN: FV-50255-10

Newberry Library (Chicago, IL 60610-3305)
James R. Akerman (Project Director: March 2010 to May 2012)
Diane Dillon (Co Project Director: March 2010 to May 2012)

A four-week seminar for sixteen school teachers to explore the relationship between art and mapping in the Americas.

The Newberry Library's Hermon Dunlap Smith Center for the History of Cartography seeks NEH support for a four-week summer seminar for school teachers in 2011 that will examine the interplay between art and maps as representations of the Americas from the 15th to the 21st century. "Envisioning America in Maps and Art," led by James Akerman and Diane Dillon, will guide 16 participants through a program exploring the relationship between art and mapping within the broad context of American history. Drawing on the Newberry's rich holdings of cartography, geography, art, history, literature, and the history of printing from the 15th to the 21st centuries, participants in the seminar will explore how maps and art shaped ideas about space, landscape, natural history, culture, and politics in the Americas. The seminar will promote the development of skills and insights relevant to a wide range of subjects embracing social studies, science, mathematics, literature, geography, and art.