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Illustrations of urban scenes naturally describe the physical characteristics of the places depicted. These representations also express implicitly broader beliefs which tie the spatial order of the surrounding world to local systems, institutions, and human actions. Images of a city embody, therefore, an ‘urban cosmography’, a concept inspired by early modern artisans' attempts to chart the contours of the world, both known and unknown. Seen from this perspective, historical graphics such as maps, posters, and birds-eye views document a city's position within a continually evolving universal order. This paper will review graphics drawn from the history of one city in particular: Baltimore, Maryland. Like other cities on the eastern seaboard of the US, Baltimore has been represented by diverse visual arts for more than two centuries. With the advent of digital and social media, Baltimore's development will depend even more upon the city's local and global interrelationships. ‘Urban cosmography’ is, therefore, a useful conceptual prism through which one may perceive the link between the city's historical legacy and contemporary urban challenges. One consequence is that visual tropes for traditional urban polarities – ‘growth’ versus ‘decay’, for instance – may be superseded by new symbols that incorporate both. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The ninth/fifteenth century Arabic work, Kharīdat al-ʿAjaʾib wa Farīḍat al-Gharaʾib, ascribed to Ibn al-Wardī (d. 861/1457), was frequently translated into Ottoman Turkish and widely read by the Ottoman literati between the tenth/sixteenth and thirteenth/nineteenth centuries. The most popular translation of the Kharīdat al-ʿAjaʾib that is extant today with more than thirty copies in libraries worldwide was made by the tenth/sixteenth century Ottoman preacher Maḥmud al-Haṭīb. Within the context of Medieval Islamic cosmographical works and their translations, which have potential to shed light on the Ottoman worldview in the early modern era, this paper delves into the extra-textual statements of the translator in the form of eye-witness accounts and contemporary hearsay. By doing so, it argues that Maḥmud al-Haṭīb's intervention in the text he translated not only provides him with grounds for confirmation of the worldview promoted in the Kharīdat al-ʿAjaʾib, but also expressions on certain issues related to sixteenth century Ottoman rule. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Delves into the Association of American Geographers in the U.S. Discussion of the organization of the association; Identification of the association's presidents; Analysis of the National Council of Geography Teachers.

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