Teaching through the JCB's collection

During Brown's inaugural winter session in January 2017, JCB Director and Librarian Neil Safier (and Associate Professor of History) taught an undergraduate course titled Maps and Empires: A Journey through the Cartographic Collection of the John Carter Brown Library. 

Drawing on recent scholarship in the history of cartography and imperialism the course sought to place cartographic production into a political and ideological context. Diverse geographical materials from the JCB's collections helped students examine the power of maps to define, mold, and reconfigure spatial relationships between peoples, places, and imperial interests. Watch a video about the class below.