There is much to be learned by studying the afterlives of images, focusing specifically on how geographic material created for a specific travel account either reinforces preconceived visions or takes on new significance when edited and republished in a foreign edition. The case study is the 'translation' of the maps, plans, coastal views and landscapes prepared for the account of Antonio Ulloa's navigation to and around South America. Published in Spain in 1748, an unusual, authorized distribution of views of its American colonies, the account and its illustrations were swiftly adapted for eighteenth-century reading publics in France (1752), the Netherlands (1752, 1771-2) and England (1752, 1758, 1760, 1772) in editions which both redrew and repositioned the illustrations. The talk both considers what it means to ‘translate’ this (or any work) – and particularly, how translation affects text, image and the relationship between them from manuscript to print, and from national to international contexts.

Speaker

Professor Jordana Dym

Jordana Dym is Professor of History at Skidmore College, where she holds the Kenan Chair of Liberal Studies. Her research interests in the history of cartography focus on the mapping of Central America, particularly Guatemala, and the intersection between Western travel and cartography. She served as chair of trustees of the International Society for the History of the Map (2019-2023) and is a founding editor of H-Maps. In 2022, she became an editor of the journal Imago Mundi. Recent publications include Mapping Travel: The Origins and Conventions of Western Journey Maps Brill Research Perspectives in Map History(Brill, 2021) and, with Carla Lois, Bound Images: maps, books, and reading in material and digital contexts maps, books, and reading in material and digital contexts" Word & Image 37 (2021).