Historical Perspectives
Historical background on the methods, technologies and reasons for visualizing landscapes in conflict.

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Imagining Global War: Popular Cartography during World War II
Tatsiana Zhurauliova
Imagining Global War: Popular Cartography during World War II
Tatsiana Zhurauliova

A look at American cartographic representations of WWII Europe, providing historical context for understanding our conception of global space.

Tatsiana Zhurauliova
Crossing the Line: A History of Medical Inspection at the Border
Celeste Menchaca
Crossing the Line: A History of Medical Inspection at the Border
Celeste Menchaca

In the early 1900s, medical inspection and photographic documentation ushered in a new set of surveillance procedures for state oversight at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Celeste Menchaca
Battlefields of Santa Barbara
Jason Hill
Battlefields of Santa Barbara
Jason Hill

How does modern war mark the California landscape? A single day's photographic record produced on the Southern California coast offers one compelling answer.

Jason Hill
A Brief History of Border Walls
Jena Lee
A Brief History of Border Walls
Jena Lee

Incendiary Traces lists historical and contemporary border walls to provide some global and historical context for understanding Southern California's contested US/Mexico border.

Jena Lee
Los Angeles: Camouflage and Contestation
Jason Weems
Los Angeles: Camouflage and Contestation
Jason Weems

Art historian Jason Weems examines three mid-century constructions understood as staples of the California landscape: Disneyland, Lakewood, and the aerospace industry.

Jason Weems
'Even Our Palm Trees Are Cooler'
Janet Owen Driggs
'Even Our Palm Trees Are Cooler'
Janet Owen Driggs

Incendiary Traces examines the role that real estate and the railroad played in the advertisement of Southern California as a fertile tropical utopia in the late 1800s.

Janet Owen Driggs
How a 19th Century Painting Transformed California's Desert World
Susanna Newbury
How a 19th Century Painting Transformed California's Desert World
Susanna Newbury

In the late 19th century, Southern California's human and natural geography transformed as millions of new residents settled its semi-arid desert world, but artistic renditions of this region seldom get the attention of its northerly neighbors. But why is this the case?

Susanna Newbury