It is my pleasure to welcome you to our first EEO-AGIS seminar of the new academic year. We are looking forward to an exciting year of great speakers and networking opportunities. Our first speaker will be Professor James Cheshire from University College London. James is the Director of the UCL Social Data Institute and he will be talking about how maps and cartography have been used as powerful tools for influencing society (see below for abstract).

As usual the talk will be hosted at the University of Edinburgh, in the Institute of Geography on Drummond Street on Friday 6^th  October at 5pm. Networking drinks after the seminar will be hosted in a new venue, the Pleasance Bar, and we hope you can join us.

For those who can't join in person, we are also finalising arrangements for online streaming of the talk and will share further details next week.

Best regards,

Iain

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*How to use maps to influence people*

Creating maps is often seen as both an art and a science, a curious blend that can make it hard to spot the fact from fiction. Borders can be shifted, regions highlighted, and areas left off all at the whim of the cartographer who may have their own agenda or is on the payroll of someone looking to prove a point. This makes them a powerful tool for influencing people when they must form an opinion or act on a particular issue.  This talk will reveal how maps came to be so influential in everything from fighting disease and tackling pollution to movements for women’s suffrage and civil rights. It will consider the importance of symbols on maps and the messages they convey, and reveal how Robert Louis Stephenson’s Treasure Island map was the inspiration for some of the most effect propaganda in the build up to the Second World War.