VISUAL TECHNOLOGIES & ENVIRONMENTAL THINKING (HIST207)

Department of History, Stanford University

2019

This course follows the historical development of visual technologies from cartography and aerial photography to satellite imagery, digital mapping, and drone visualization. The readings and final project focus on the Middle East and North Africa as testing grounds for new ways of representing space in the 19th and 20th-centuries. We will trace the development and circulation of various mapping devices while questioning how conceptions of nature (and society) changed throughout the development of technical ways of seeing the earth from a distance.

Particular attention will be paid to the military, political, and cultural factors that shaped how people constructed the view from above and reformulated scientific ideas about the natural world such as biological and human diversity, climate aridity, and environmental decay. The final project is to curate maps of the Middle East in a digital exhibit that raises awareness on how visual technologies help refashion the way we visualize, represent, and think the natural environment. There are no required qualifications for enrollment.