Bound images: maps, books, and reading in material and digital contexts

Abstract

The dominant practice in Western map studies has been to consider maps as “sovereign,” that is, as individual images separated from the material context of their production, circulation, and consumption. Book studies, also, have generally overlooked maps when considering graphic elements such as engravings and photographs. Yet many maps are located within, and contribute to, the larger arguments of books of all kinds, including histories, geographies, travel accounts, and novels. This article asks what changes theoretically and in practice when we dethrone the “sovereign map” and engage with maps as “bound images,” a hybrid graphic and textual part of the stories told by authors and publishers which is experienced by readers in book form through materiality, context, and significance. By way of conclusion, we offer an approach to analyzing maps in context, and an appendix with initial guiding questions.