International Symposium on Maps in American Literature, 15th-21st c.
Where: École normale supérieure de Lyon, France
When: April 1st – April 3rd, 2026
Description: Maps have long shaped the American literary imagination—from Jefferson’s maps of Virginia to Melville’s whale charts, from contemporary authors like Lauret Savoy and John Keene, who explore what ancient cartographic documents reveal or conceal about American history, to Indigenous counter-mapping reclamations like Joy Harjo’s poetic anthology. Yet while maps have served as crucial sources of information, inspiration, and authority, their material presence in literary studies remains surprisingly underexplored. For several decades now, literary studies have embraced the language of mapping and spatiality, leading to metaphorical interpretations of texts as cultural maps. However, this “cartographic turn” (Brückner) has paradoxically sidelined actual maps.
This symposium seeks to uncover these often overlooked influences, examining how specific maps have shaped both the form and content of American literature. By “maps,” we refer here to cartographic documents of real-world spaces, focusing specifically on those that exist outside or alongside the texts themselves —whether preexisting maps that writers engaged with or maps produced for or after publication. This excludes maps of fictional spaces such as Sherwood Anderson’s map of Winesburg, Ohio, or Faulkner’s map of Yoknapatawpha County. By “American literature,” we mean the works emerging from what would become the United States, taking into account its colonial past prior to nationhood, as well as its transatlantic, transpacific, hemispheric, and global dimensions. We particularly welcome proposals from scholars of literature who have come across maps in their research on specific texts, ranging from ancient maps preserved in writers’ archives to modern digital maps, as well as atlases.
The symposium introduces a dynamic format that emphasizes the materiality of maps. Presenters will have the option to engage with full-scale reproductions of their source maps, transforming traditional presentations into interactive workshops. These maps will then feature in a 2-month exhibition at the Diderot Library (ENS de Lyon), alongside a permanent online exhibition. The event will also include visits to Lyon’s cartographic archives.
Institution: École normale supérieure de Lyon
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