Terrae Incognitae: Mapping the Unknown

Carla Lois, Ph.D. (2008), is Professor at the University of Buenos Aires and Researcher at the CONICET. She coordinates the working group GHECIT (Grupo de Historia y Epistemologìa de las Cartografías y as Imágenes Técnicas). She has published several articles and books, including Sketch Maps. Drawing the Geographical Imagination (Brill, 2023).

• AcknowledgementsList of IllustrationIntroduction: Geographies of the Unknown1 Evasive Geographies: No Man’s Land2 Exploring the Nuances of the Unknown: the Limits of Dichotomies and the Diversity of Inaccessible Worlds3 Is It Possible to Map the Unknown?4 In Light of the Unknown: the Aesthetics of Absence5 Structuring the Unknownpart 1The PlausibleIntroduction to Part 11 Plausible Geographies: the Expectation of New Worlds 1 White on White: Making Room on World Maps for Posing New Questions2 A World of Islands and Continents3 Discovering a World: the Quarta Pars or the Unexpected Continent4 Dreaming of a World: the Quinta Pars or the Expected Continent2 Topographies of Hypothesis, Ways of Writing Questions1 Ellipsis: Interrupted Geographies Awaiting More Information2 The Shapes of the Unknown: Geometry3 Aditamento : the Unknown as Epilogue3 Mirrors and Mirages1 The Mirror as Device: from Mimesis to Distortion2 The Southern Ocean as a mirror3 On the Other Side of the Mirror: Plus ultra equinoctialem and the Cosmographical Imagination in Symmetric Key4 Seas and Skies: a Play of Mirrors5 Mirror-Toponyms6 From Mirror to Mirage: From Plausible Illusion to Reinvented Fictionpart 2The Poorly Explored: Nineteenth Century PatagoniaIntroduction to Part 24 Emptying: Blank as an Omen of Exploration1 Terra incognita or nondum plenum cognita: From the Unknown to the Little-Known, the Genesis of a Transformation2 Preparing Space: from White to Blank3 Deletion: Blank as a Deliberate Act4 Blank as Moment Zero5 Conquering the Realms of the Foreign1 Patagonia’s Foreignness2 A Desert “That is Good for Nothing”3 Toward the Positivity of the Desert: the Unutterable Becomes the Unuttered6 Ultimatum to the Unknown: the Banishment of the Blank1 Tamed Deserts: the Cartographic Rhetoric that Turned Patagonia into Provinces2 Putting the Blank on the Other Side: Transforming the Blank into the Foreignpart 3The Non-Visible: the Landscape of the Abyss at the Bottom of the OceansIntroduction to Part 37 Shelters from the Fearful Unknown: Islands amid the Darkness1 The Insular Drive: a Hinge between the Inside and the Outside2 Leaving the Islands to Venture into the Endless Blue3 Blank Oceans, Full Oceans8 The Naked Ocean: the Spectacle of the Non-Visible1 The Image as a Device for Viewing the Unseen: the Power of Abstraction2 Seeing the World in Miniature3 Mapping the Non-Visible: Creating the Impossible Landscape4 The Nude Ocean or the Curtains of the World Theater9 Beyond the Shadows: Going Down to the Bottom (to Reach the Illusion of Seeing)1 The Darkness of the Colourless and the Deep: from Gloom to Truth2 Bringing the Bottom to the Surface: Bathymetric Marks3 Measuring to See: the Geometric GazeConclusion: the Unknown, Inaccessible Geographies1 Blank and White Geographies2 Terrae incognitae: the Positivity of a Negativity3 Beyond the Cases: the Languages and Categories of the Unknown, the Flexibility of the UnchangingBibliographyIndex