Off-Site Event (Milwaukee)
at The American Geographical Society Library (AGSL)
sponsored by Arthur and Janet Holzheimer
University of Wisconsin Milwaukee Site Event Details
*Registration is Required* – Register Here →
Date: Thursday, April 24th, 2025
Location: AGSL / Golda Meir Library | University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
2311 E Hartford Ave | Milwaukee, WI 53211 | Google Maps
Time: 5:30 pm CT (Social Time)
6:00 pm CT (Presentation)
Title: Processing Place: How Computers and Cartographers Redrew our World.
Speakers: Ian Spangler & Emily Bowe
Newberry Library Public Programming Event
Date: Wednesday, May 7, 2025
Location: The Newberry Library | 60 West Walton St | Chicago IL | Google Maps
Time: 6:00 pm – 7:00pm CT (Presentation)
Title: The 1524 Cortés Map of Tenochtitlán, Mexico
Speakers: Barbara Mundy, in conversation with Lia Markey and David Weimer.
Registration Required for this event:
Newberry Event Listing
In Person Registration →
Live Stream Registration →
What is the value of firsthand experience with library materials? How are Indigenous histories embedded in the physical properties of objects? What roles do both the scholar and the institution play in studying these materials?
Art historian Barbara Mundy has dedicated much of her career to studying one renowned map in the Newberry’s collection, the first known map of the great Aztec city of Tenochtitlán. The map captures the city just before its fall in 1521 to forces commanded by the Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortés. Scholars flock to the Newberry from around the world to examine this rare colored edition of the map, published in 1524.
Barbara Mundy and Newberry research center directors Lia Markey and David Weimer will explore the significance of this extraordinary object from diverse vantage points, including Indigenous history, the history of Mexico, the history of cartography, and art history. In the process, the discussion will also engage with Dr. Mundy’s career as an art historian and the Newberry’s role as custodian.
Speakers:
Barbara Mundy is an art historian best known for her work on the history of cartography, urban history, and the history of the book. Her research focuses primarily on Mexico and New Spain and the interactions between Indigenous peoples, settler colonists, and their environments across the colonial period. Her upcoming book, Mexico-Tenochtitlan: Dynamism at the Center of the World, looks anew at the reasons for the city’s rapid consolidation and enduring status as an imperial capital.
Lia Markey is the Director of the Newberry’s Center for Renaissance Studies, where she is responsible for conferences, symposia, workshops, seminars, and digital humanities projects devoted to medieval and early modern studies. Her research examines cross-cultural exchange between Italy and the Americas in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, collecting history, and early modern prints and drawings.
David Weimer is Newberry Curator of Maps and Director of the Hermon Dunlap Smith Center for the History of Cartography. He has devoted his professional and scholarly work to guiding people into the history of maps and highlighting their interdisciplinary potential. In 2020, he co-curated an exhibition on the tactile reading of texts that earned him the Biennial Disability History Association’s Public Disability History Award.
Date: Thursday, May 15th, 2025
Location: The Newberry Library | 60 West Walton St | Chicago IL | Google Maps
Time: 5:30 pm CT (Social Time)
6:00 pm CT (Presentation)
Title: Biogeography: The Science of Mapping Life and How it Matters in Conserving Species
Speaker: Richard Condit
Abstract: Biogeography is a sub-discipline within the scientific fields of ecology, evolution, and conservation. I will give a brief history of the concept, for example, Darwin’s use of biogeography in the Origin of Species. Then I will give examples of how maps are used
in scientific studies with emphasis on my own research using distribution maps of tropical trees. The maps provide rapid visual tools for understanding important patterns, especially habitat requirements for any species. Maps can also be used to identify species
at high risk of extinction. Indeed, little in ecology or evolution makes sense except in the light of maps.
Speaker Bio: Richard Condit has studied dynamics and diversity of forests across the world, especially in tropical South America and Africa. His research covers ecological theory, demography, and environmental variation, and he has published over one hundred research reports and two books, including a Field Guide to Trees of Panama and Costa Rica. He also works on mammals and birds, including a long-term study of populations of the northern elephant seal in Calfornia. He retired from a research position at the Smithsonian Tropical
Research Institute, but remains active in research and continues mentoring young scientists.