Women, exploration and discovery: Special panel/issue to be published in Terrae Incognitae

Ida Laura Pfeiffer (1797-1858),
an Austrian explorer and author.

Proposals are being sought for a panel dedicated to women explorers, travelers, cartographers, etc., who contributed to or participated in the exploration and discovery of our world, its lands and oceans, at the 2014 annual meeting of the Society for the History of Discoveries (October 30-November 2, 2014, in Austin, Texas).  Peer-reviewed, article-length submissions will be published in a special issue of Terrae Incognitae, vol. 48.1.

Three-hundred-word proposals accompanied by a brief biographical abstract should be received by May 15, 2014, via email to Dr. Lauren Beck (lbeck@mta.ca).  Ideally contributors will both present their research and see it published in the journal, but if this is not possible, please email the editor for further information.

• For more information about the 2014 annual meeting

The Hidden World of Women Cartographers

In Map Worlds: A History of Women in Cartography, author Will C. Van Den Hoonaard suggests the thirteenth-century Ebstorf mappa mundi may have been created by the nuns of the Ebstorf abbey. 

Will C. Van Den Hoonaard has written a recently published work that researches the oft-overlooked contribution of women to the history of cartography.  Titled Map Worlds: A History of Women in Cartography, printed by the Wilfrid Laurier University Press, it covers female cartographers, explorers, and geographers from the sixteenth-century till today.  It offers an intriguing take, too, on how gender may be used to interpret maps.

• "Mapping Out the Hidden World of Women Cartographers" by Cathy Newman, National Geographic Magazine