Asa Simon Mittman: “Seeing Across the World: How Medieval Mapmakers Brought Their Monsters Home"

Sponsored in partnership with the Boston, California, Chicago, New York, Philip Lee Phillips, Rocky Mountain, and Texas Map Societies

Location: Zoom

Time:  7:00 pm ET/6:00 pm CT/5:00 pm MT/4:00 pm PT

Title: Seeing Across the World: How Medieval Mapmakers Brought Their Monsters Home

Speaker:  Asa Simon Mittman, Professor of Art & Art History, California State University, Chico

“Telesthesia” – perception at a distance – is a key element of medieval cartography. This talk is focused on the Hereford Map, which is the largest and most detailed map to survive from medieval Europe. The talk explores the visual strategies that medieval mapmakers used to create the sense that a viewer safely ensconced in a church in England could see distant peoples throughout the world. It also examines the visual dynamics that seem to allow these supposedly distant peoples to travel across the world, and appear within the “safe” spaces where the maps are housed.

RSVP to John Docktor at washmap@gmail.com to receive the Zoom meeting ID and passcode.