W.E. Upjohn
Lectures
- The Arthur Geddes Memorial Lecture given at the National Association of the Geographers of India (NAGI), November 19, 2010, is entitled, "The Geospatial Re-discovery of India". Arthur Geddes, scion of the town planner Patrick Geddes, researched India and Bangladesh during much of his career as a geographer.
This lecture focuses on returning to the origins of trigonometrically accurate surveys of India to establish time and space integration in geospatial analyses of India. It also refers to some of Geddes' geographical work on India. The lecture features the long-forgotten Atlas of South India by Aaron Arrowsmith, the document that triggered the mapping of India using modern methods throughout the 19th and 20th centuries.
This lecture was made possible by a 2009-2010 Digital Innovation Fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies, for the project entitled "Reading Aaron Arrowsmith's Atlas of South India".
- The Raja Todar Mal Memorial Plenary Lecture, given at the Indian National Cartographic Association (INCA), October 15, 2011, is entitled "The Future of Historical Cartography". It is in three versions that differ in size. The largest file (458 mb) allows some of the maps and graphics to be enlarged 1600%. A medium size version (<11 mb) allows viewing maps and graphics up to 300% magnification.
Raja Todar Mal was a Hindu prince who organized the Mughal Emperor Akbar's land revenue system, which system was also carried over into the British colonial era. Land taxes were levied according to the productivity of land, which in turn had to be surveyed in order to evaluate productivity. Raja Todar Mal was deemed a "Navaratna" in Akbar's court – one of its "Nine Jewels".
* View the Raja Todar lecture in low resolution, medium resolution or in high resolution