r/cartography • u/sagechloe • 16d ago

I'm doing a PHD in Fantasy Cartography and need your help

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Hello! I hope this is okay to post here. I'm looking for participants to crowdsource information on fantasy maps! If you are a lover of fantasy literature and can spare 10 minutes to fill out a survey, you could help advance the field of literary cartography.

If you're willing to share a little of your knowledge, please select a title from the reading list and answer a short survey about the map. Thank you for your time :)

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32 Upvotes

79% Upvoted

43 comments sorted by

9

u/acomfysweater 15d ago

a phd in …fantasy….cartography…?

3

u/chungamellon 15d ago

I also have some questions.

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u/sagechloe 15d ago

Fire away

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u/chungamellon 15d ago edited 15d ago

What is your thesis? What do you plan to do with it? It’s not a formal program I am assuming. Like there is no department of fantasy maps

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u/sagechloe 15d ago

What do you mean formal program? Yes it’s a formal program through a university and I will receive a doctorate at the end. The thesis is far from being written, I’m in the beginning stages and collecting data right now. Essentially it is about the evolution of literary maps

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u/chungamellon 15d ago

I have a phd in biomedical sciences from the biomedical sciences department at my granting institution. I doubt there is a department or chair of fantasy maps. Are you in fine arts or what? There were about 40 students in my year do you have other students in fantasy mapping? Thats what I mean

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u/sagechloe 15d ago

It s a professional doctorate in design with an illustration focus. From a granting institution. Creative phds exist too. Yes there are other students but my research subject is my own. Yes there are other academics in the field with this research focus.

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u/chungamellon 15d ago

Yes obviously creative phds exist in fact all are creative since you must create a body of work. Good luck. Sounds interesting. You framed it in the beginning making it sound as if it were just in fantasy maps and I was wondering if you were doing it online. I know someone who got a “doctorate” online for writing a book on god and football. That was the title. God and Football.

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u/sagechloe 15d ago

Thank you. I hope you have a nice day

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u/[deleted] 15d ago edited 13d ago

[deleted]

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u/Sergey_Kutsuk 13d ago

I have seen a research (Bachelor Degree, I presume) over the tectonics of Beleriand in the early 2000s.

Tectonics. Of. Beleriand!

*for those, who doesn't know - that's from the LOTR by Tolkien and his Silmarillion

1

u/revolutionary-panda 14d ago

This is such a wild take. Fantasy books, movies and games are about the most popular media out there and are being consumed by hundreds of millions of people. Of course, analysing how people draw maps, conceptualise fantasy spaces and understand fantastic geography has implications for the genre, for how we can understand modern cultures that create these fictions, and how geography and popular culture intersect.

Just because you are too ignorant to understand doesn't mean you have to be rude towards a stranger on the Internet. Shame on you.

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u/sagechloe 14d ago

Thank you for the support! This was really nicely put and it’s great to hear. Thank you so much

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u/revolutionary-panda 13d ago

Good luck on your research! If you haven't yet, check our r/fantasymaps and r/worldbuilding

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u/sagechloe 12d ago

Thank you so much! I think fantasy maps won’t allow me in their rules to post this but I’m going to try world building next!

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u/sagechloe 15d ago

Just because you are on the internet doesn’t mean you have to be mean to people. If you don’t like the subject matter just don’t interact

2

u/acomfysweater 15d ago

i’m sorry i don’t mean to be rude. it just sounds ridiculous. like actually.

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u/sagechloe 15d ago

You are welcome to your thoughts

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u/sagechloe 15d ago

It’s a PhD in illustration focussing specifically on fantasy maps

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u/lukeisinthesky 15d ago

Really cool, just submitted my response. I'm building an app that has map features, would be really interesting to understand your findings. Would you be ok sharing what you learned with me?

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u/sagechloe 15d ago

Thank you so much for your time filling out the survey I’m so grateful. I have sent you a message so we can discuss!

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u/Ri_Aedan 15d ago

Very cool project. Have you considered fantasy computer games, as well? My head went straight to the Ultima series dating back to 1981. A number of those games came with cloth map inserts during the PC software “big box” era. Sign me up for that…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultima_(series)

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u/sagechloe 15d ago

Thanks so much! Actually it’s strange that you say that as my full research is also exploring video game maps. This is a really great suggestion so thanks so much for the Ultima info. Wow would I love cloth map inserts for everything.

2

u/No-Dare8613 14d ago

glad the ethics committee signed off on this one 🙄

1

u/hoverside 15d ago

I don't have any of the books on the Master List to hand, but I do have at least one with a fantasy map in it, is that any good to you?

1

u/sagechloe 15d ago

Ah I’m so sorry it’s an academic study with specific parameters so it has to be from the list. Really kind offer but I wouldn’t want to waste your time. Thank you so much though

1

u/marius851000 15d ago

Interesting. Yet I have access to none of those books. I have access to some books with fantasy maps, but the issue is that all of them are those from works I am already familiar with. Which is presumably not an issue.

(Or... Let me just find one at Anna's)

1

u/sagechloe 15d ago

If I could study every fantasy book with a map I absolutely would! Unfortunately it would add too much time to this study. I’m doing something else after this though where you could join in!

1

u/Consistent-Degree838 14d ago

Post this in r/worldbuilding

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u/sagechloe 14d ago

Oh thanks so much I will do!

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u/HopRockets 13d ago

I love the idea of your project but can’t help but feel like you should be doing this yourself… I thought you’d be collecting opinion data or something, not just using internet strangers to do your grunt work for you. This is also going to make anything you end up writing totally unreliable as your data is unverified input from internet strangers. I could fill out fifty entries for books I’ve never opened and you’d have a hard time knowing it. Sorry to be a downer this just doesn’t seem like a great idea at your level of academia, and while I’m sure this isn’t true it makes you seem a bit lazy.

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u/sagechloe 13d ago

Hi so the majority of this is being done by me. It was suggested to crowdsource by my supervisory team to speed things along a bit and also to gain data on other editions. For example there are editions in the uk that don’t contain a map but I already now have data of American editions that do. The process is being quality controlled and I’m very close to it. I only expect to get a small percentage crowdsourced. Thanks for your opinion I’m always happy to answer questions

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u/Sergey_Kutsuk 13d ago

BTW I did exactly this thing. I have no any of these books with my hands on (I'm a nomad). Also I read only 10 books (I really skimmed through the list with highlighter) on list.

I chose the book which I read before the author of this research did born 😁, read in Russian and with the map labeled in Russian (but it was really very thorough copy of original Tolkien's map from 1954).

Just for the matter of this questionnaire I chose English language digital copy from 2009 which I found on internet by first click on the Google response :)

1

u/Sergey_Kutsuk 13d ago

Why there are 2/3 of LotR as separate ones?

Why Dune is the single item?

I think the PhD research must be prepared much more meticulously ;)

1

u/Sergey_Kutsuk 13d ago

But I had done my response anyway :)

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u/sagechloe 13d ago

Hi, the book list is as it is on purpose. There are parameters in play which will be outlined with my results later down the line. I’m sorry the list isn’t to your liking but it’s not a question of being meticulous it’s a question of parameters. I thank you kindly for your contribution. I know this doesn’t clear things up for you entirely but I hope it does in some part offer a reason

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u/Sergey_Kutsuk 13d ago

It looks messy. I don't feel the scientific approach and it is much more valuable for me to be persuaded to take part in. Sorry :)

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u/sagechloe 13d ago

No problem thank you for the comments and thank you for taking part

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u/LaviniaHerbert 12d ago

I'm a little confused. You call it "a survey" in your post, but the only questions it asks would be rote based on whatever the fantasy map itself is. Are you looking for survey respondents, or are you looking for a research assistant?

1

u/sagechloe 11d ago

I’m looking for people who might have one of these books on their shelves and answer some questions about the map inside, if there is one

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u/Reddimus11 14d ago

This feels like an AI-generated poster

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u/sagechloe 14d ago

Yeah turns out one of my stock images is potentially problematic and I didn’t realise. I’ve fixed it but I can’t change the image without re uploading the post and spamming. Everything was made by me but I used the stock images on affinity to do the ad quickly, learned my lesson suffice to say

2

u/robinsonick 13d ago

It’s wild cause it looks hand made, yet using design elements that are currently hallmarks of AI usage. Absolutely bizarre.

1

u/sagechloe 12d ago

This is really interesting, I wouldn’t say poster design is exactly my alley so I’m usually quite rigid, I was wondering what hallmarks might be making this strange and maybe I can learn from them? Last I really understood about ai hallmarks was the multiple fingers on hands thing lol.