Mapping Meaning: Jesuit Cartographic Visions of ‘All Under Heaven’ - A talk by Florence Hsia September 17, 2010

Please join the Center for Early Modern History in 1210 Heller Hall for a lecture by Florence Hsia of the University of Wisconsin-Madison entitled, "Mapping Meaning: Jesuit Cartographic Visions of 'All Under Heaven.'"

Maps of late imperial China produced by Jesuit missionaries to the Middle Kingdom have been most extensively studied from a genealogical perspective concerned with assessing cross-cultural influence at the level of cartographic techniques, conventions, and knowledge. More recent scholarly analysis of this material has turned to the function of Jesuit cartography within early modern state-building enterprises in both East and West. This presentation starts with a question that largely goes unasked in the literature: what might these cartographic activities have meant for the Jesuits themselves? Close examination of the principal maps produced for European readers by Jesuits involved in the Society's work in China reveals a diversity of agendas advanced in a variety of cartographic forms, from the minutely engraved map that appeared on the elaborate titlepage to De christiana expeditione apud Sinas (1615) to the massive folio sheets that comprised over 40 separate maps and several hundred pages of associated geographical material in Jean-Baptiste Du Halde's renowned Description de la Chine (1735).

You may bring your own lunch or join in the light repast provided by the Center. If you have any additional questions, contact [email protected] or visit the Center for Early Modern History in Heller Hall, room 1030.

Official Website: http://www.cemh.umn.edu/