Professor: Marcel Brousseau
4 credits
This course addresses the relationship between narrative and cartography. Taking a comparative perspective on this topic, we will complementarily analyze: 1) the inherent spatial logics and place-basis of storytelling, or the ways in which stories are maps, 2) the narrative potentiality and processual nature of the map, or the ways in which maps are stories. Furthermore, we will examine maps and stories as complementary, intertwined tools of research and knowledge-sharing. In order to address these issues, students will engage with numerous modes and media of narrative mapping, including itinerary and network maps; Apache oral storytelling; critical cartography by Potawatomi geographer Margaret Pearce; cartographic cinema; GIS and web-based map texts; map paintings, and literary texts from multiple genres, including drama, crónica, and poetry. Students will learn narrative and cartographic terminology and theory, explore mapmaking and storytelling as research-guided activities, and have the opportunity to research, write, design, and reflexively analyze their own narrative cartography.