’n Kartering van die sublieme : uranografie en die estetieka van oorweldiging

Abstract

In his thesis, ’n Kartering van die sublieme: uranografie en die estetieka van oorweldiging (Mapping the sublime: uranography and the aesthetics of the overwhelming), the promovendus draws correlations between historical interpretations of the aesthetic concept of the sublime and concurrent cosmological perceptions of the workings of the universe. Using a hermeneutic approach, the study illustrates how these interrelationships manifest visually in the cultural product of the star map (and artworks in which the stars are depicted with cartographic accuracy). Since the introduction of the discipline of the History of Cartography in the late twentieth century, discourses were focused on the land map and the socio-political implications of the map. Stellar cartography has been described style-specific, but the socio-cultural connotations of the star map has been neglected. This study addresses that gap and looks at uranography from a cultural cartographic viewpoint with the aesthetics of the sublime in mind.