As substantial reductions of a much larger, more complex reality, maps must generalize, and in this sense their omissions, smoothings, and displacements are small lies. Because viewers are accustomed to these necessary cartographic distortions and seem willing to accept maps as objective representations, map authors can occasionally tell big lies. This talk examines a range of cartographic tricks and techniques that should make map users wary: inadvertent glitches; scale and generalization; deliberate "cartographic silences"; simulations; symbolization and classification; map projection; and propaganda. Not intended to debunk maps--most maps fit somewhere between mildly informative and enormously useful--the talk attempts to promote informed skepticism.
Mark Monmonier is a nationally-recognized expert in geography, cartography, and GIS. He has served as editor of The American Cartographer and president of the American Cartographic Association, and has been a research geographer for the U.S. Geological Survey and a consultant to the National Geographic Society and Microsoft Corporation. Monmonier's many awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1984 and the American Geographical Society's O. M. Miller Cartographic Medal in 2001. He has published numerous papers on map design, automated map analysis, cartographic generalization, the history of cartography, statistical graphics, geographic demography, and mass communications, and is author of numerous books including How to Lie With Maps, Drawing the Line: Tales of Maps and Cartocontroversy, and Spying with Maps: Surveillance Technologies and the Future of Privacy.
Refreshments will be served.
