Edited by Tommaso Morawski and Ernesto C. Sferrazza Papa
If we look briefly at the history of philosophy, the relation between philosophy and cartographic knowledge, especially in the Western tradition, has gone overlooked. Indeed, not enough thought has been given to a set of problems, common to both disciplines, which show their mutual implications: among them, the problem of truth, the relation between visual signs and their reference to the real, the political use of knowledge and, consequently, its relation to the sphere of power.
Only in recent years, both in the continental and in the Anglo-Saxon traditions, the analysis of the connections between philosophy and cartography has gained interest, especially due to the innovative work of theorists and historians of cartography, philosophers, political scientists, jurists and media-theorists. Among others, in this list we can include scholars such as Brian Harley, Denis Wood, David Harvey, John Pickles, Stuart Elden, Jeremy Crampton, Gilbert Simondon, Bernhard Siegert, Carl Schmitt, Michel Foucault, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Franco Farinelli. Nevertheless, the research on this topic is certainly nowhere near complete.
The forthcoming issue of “Pólemos. Materiali di filosofia e critica sociale” aims at promoting the translation and exchange of theories, languages and concepts from one discipline to another. This is a matter of reconstructing the historical, theoretical, aesthetical and political relationship between philosophy and cartography. Never before were the processes of globalisation and mondialisation, the new mapping technologies, the dislocation of gazes and practices from the telluric plan to maritime or aerial ones (maybe also atmospheric) so important, such that today, critical thinkers can no longer avoid the need to reject the isolation of knowledge and in place must encourage their continuous articulation and hybridisation.
Possible topics of contribution include:
- History of Philosophy and History of Cartography
- Ontology of cartographic objects
- Cartographic knowledge and its political use
- Critical Cartography and the power/knowledge relation, with emphasis on Foucaultian epistemology
- New cartographies of globalization and mobility
- Virtual spaces, GIS and digital mappings
- Diagrammatic thought and cartography
- Encyclopaedias of knowledge and cartographic models
Articles should not exceed 40.000 typewritten characters, including spaces. Authors must include an English abstract (1.000 characters). Manuscripts should be submitted through the online submission form by July 15th, 2018 (.doc, .docx or .odt are accepted). Please include papers and abstracts together in one document and ensure that it is suitable for anonymous review. Papers directly connected to the theme are especially encouraged. Proposed papers will be independently and blindly reviewed by two experts in the field. The contributions should be sent to cfp@rivistapolemos.it
If the papers are on other topics, authors are welcome to discuss their proposals with the editors before submission. Please contact editors at the following addresses:
tommaso.morawski@uniroma1.it
esferraz@unito.it
You can download the pdf file of the call for paper