Annual DiMatteo Lecture with Dr. Bill Rankin

All are invited to join us for the 2023 DiMatteo Lecture with Dr. Bill Rankin on Thursday, April 6, from 5:30 PM – 7:30 PM, at Hannaford Hall in the Abromson Center on the Portland campus of the University of Southern Maine.

Maps are typically tools of the powerful, created by governments or large corporations to reflect and reinforce the status quo. This talk is an exploration of how new kinds of cartography can challenge the entrenched politics of mainstream mapping. By combining historical research on the history of data maps with Rankin’s own work as a cartographer over the last twenty years, it argues that contemporary cartography should be guided not just by new data or new technology, but by a new set of values.

This event is free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be served at the event opening.

Dr. Bill Rankin is a historian and cartographer. His mapping activity is focused on reimagining everyday urban and territorial geographies as complex landscapes of statistics, law, and history. His maps have appeared in publications and exhibitions throughout the US and Europe, including articles in Foreign Policy, Perspecta, Harvard Design Magazine, and National Geographic and shows at Harvard, Yale, Pratt, the Cartographic Bienalle in Lausanne, the Triennalle di Milano, and the Toronto Images Festival; his maps also traveled for several years with ICI’s “Experimental Geographies” exhibit. His historical research is about the politics of cartography and navigation in the twentieth century. He teaches at Yale University, where he is an assistant professor of the history of science. Learn more about his work at his website: www.radicalcartography.net/.