Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

The mythic campus and the professorial life A. Scott Carter's pictorial map of the University of Toronto, 1937

The mythic campus and the professorial life A. Scott Carter's pictorial map of the University of... Purpose – In 1937, a pictorial fine art map of the University of Toronto was designed and painted by artist Alexander Scott Carter. The map was commissioned by Vincent Massey, then High Commissioner for Canada in Britain, and given as a gift to Hart House. As a vibrantly visual rendition of the university's historical lineage, the map depicts the evolution of the university's various colleges along with its founders, contemporary geographical boundaries, and lush and verdant landscapes. The purpose of this paper is to inquire into its cultural and historical importance. Design/methodology/approach – The paper analyses, and provides a viewpoint on, A. Scott Carter's map. Findings – Carter's map reveals the discursive and visual interpretive frameworks in which the map was situated and the narratives and myths that it sanctioned. The map performs an important function in authorizing the collective identity of the university and its actual and imagined communities. It provides a cultural expression of shared values, ideals, and particular historical traditions. The university's place in the hierarchy and tradition of Canadian higher education in the British Commonwealth is embodied in the map at a time when such ideas were under scrutiny by professors and intellectuals who were arguing for the extrication of Canada from colonial inheritances. Originality/value – Carter's map highlights the university and its integral cultural artifacts, spaces, and practices as being replete with contested meanings, experiences, and symbolism. Through dynamic cartography, new approaches in deciphering the official and informal campus emerge to produce a nuanced and multifaceted historical picture of university and academic cultures. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png History of Education Review Emerald Publishing

The mythic campus and the professorial life A. Scott Carter's pictorial map of the University of Toronto, 1937

E. Lisa Panayotidis; Paul Stortz
History of Education Review , Volume 40 (1): 21 – Jun 24, 2011
Download PDF
21 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/emerald-publishing/the-mythic-campus-and-the-professorial-life-a-scott-carter-s-pictorial-IUwnyXJZcX
Publisher
Emerald Publishing
Copyright
Copyright © 2011 Emerald Group Publishing Limited. All rights reserved.
ISSN
0819-8691
DOI
10.1108/08198691111140785
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Purpose – In 1937, a pictorial fine art map of the University of Toronto was designed and painted by artist Alexander Scott Carter. The map was commissioned by Vincent Massey, then High Commissioner for Canada in Britain, and given as a gift to Hart House. As a vibrantly visual rendition of the university's historical lineage, the map depicts the evolution of the university's various colleges along with its founders, contemporary geographical boundaries, and lush and verdant landscapes. The purpose of this paper is to inquire into its cultural and historical importance. Design/methodology/approach – The paper analyses, and provides a viewpoint on, A. Scott Carter's map. Findings – Carter's map reveals the discursive and visual interpretive frameworks in which the map was situated and the narratives and myths that it sanctioned. The map performs an important function in authorizing the collective identity of the university and its actual and imagined communities. It provides a cultural expression of shared values, ideals, and particular historical traditions. The university's place in the hierarchy and tradition of Canadian higher education in the British Commonwealth is embodied in the map at a time when such ideas were under scrutiny by professors and intellectuals who were arguing for the extrication of Canada from colonial inheritances. Originality/value – Carter's map highlights the university and its integral cultural artifacts, spaces, and practices as being replete with contested meanings, experiences, and symbolism. Through dynamic cartography, new approaches in deciphering the official and informal campus emerge to produce a nuanced and multifaceted historical picture of university and academic cultures.

Journal

History of Education Review – Emerald Publishing

Published: Jun 24, 2011

Keywords: Universities; Maps; Arts; Culture (sociology); Canada

References

  • Youth, University, and Canadian Society: Essays in the Social History of Higher Education
    Axelrod, P.; Reid, J.G.
  • Sacred groves: sacrifice and the order of nature in ancient Greek landscapes
    Barnett, R.
  • The University and the City: From Medieval Origins to the Present
    Bender, T.
  • The Young Vincent Massey
    Bissell, C.
  • The Imperial Canadian: Vincent Massey in Office
    Bissell, C.
  • University of Toronto Memorial Book, Second World War, 1939‐1945
    Brown, H.E.
  • MacDonald Gill: the wonderground map of 1913 and its influence
    Burdon, E.
  • Seeking the Highest Good: Social Service and Gender at the University of Toronto, 1888‐1937
    Burke, S.Z.
  • Academic Charisma and the Origins of the Research University
    Clark, W.
  • Walking in the city
    de Certeau, M.
  • Oxbridge Men: British Masculinity and the Undergraduate Experience, 1850‐1920
    Deslandes, P.R.
  • Rockefeller Foundation Funding and Medical Education in Toronto, Montreal, and Halifax
    Feduckiw, M.
  • The Force of Culture: Vincent Massey and Canadian Sovereignty
    Finlay, K.
  • Outsiders or Equals? Women Professors at the University of New Zealand, 1911‐1961
    Fitzgerald, T.
  • The University of Toronto: A History
    Freidland, M.L.
  • Negara: The Theatre State in Nineteenth Century Bali
    Geertz, C.
  • A Long Eclipse: The Liberal Protestant Establishment and the Canadian University, 1920‐1970
    Gidney, C.
  • The American College Town
    Gumprecht, B.
  • Panoramic Maps of Cities in the United States and Canada
    Hébert, J.R.
  • The Invention of Tradition
    Hobsbawm, E.; Ranger, T.
  • Extending the educational franchise: the social contract of Australia's public universities, 1850‐1890
    Horne, J.; Sherington, G.
  • Campus Life: Undergraduate Cultures from the End of the Eighteenth Century to the Present
    Horowitz, H.L.
  • A Strange Elation: Hart House the First Eighty Years
    Kilgour, D.
  • The experience of students in the ‘new era’: discourse and gender in The Varsity , 1919‐1929
    King, A.E.
  • The Muses the Masses and the Massey Commission
    Litt, P.
  • The Great Adventure: 100 Years at the Arts and Letters Club
    McBurney, M.
  • The herald painter: A. Scott Carter R.C.A
    Macpherson, R.G.M.
  • What's Past is Prologue: The Memoirs of the Right Honourable Vincent Massey, 1887‐1967
    Massey, V.
  • An Evangelical Mind: Nathanel Burwash and the Methodist Tradition in Canada 1839‐1918
    Massey, V.
  • An Uncommon Fellowship: The Story of Hart House
    Montagnes, I.
  • Projects for Trinity College Toronto
    Owen, G.
  • James Mavor: cultural ambassador and aesthetic educator to Toronto's elite, 1892‐1925
    Panayotidis, E.L.
  • ‘Artist, poet, and socialist’: academic deliberations on William Morris at the University of Toronto, 1896‐1925
    Panayotidis, E.L.
  • The complexity of ‘seeing’ and doing ‘good’: a Canadian art education analysis of the ‘good society’
    Panayotidis, E.L.
  • The bureaucratization of creativity: the art and industry controversy at central technical school, 1931‐1949
    Panayotidis, E.L.
  • Intellectual space, image, and identities in the historical university campus: Helen Kemp's map of the University of Toronto, 1932
    Panayotidis, E.L.; Stortz, P.
  • Visual interpretations, cartoons, and caricatures of student and youth cultures in university yearbooks, 1898‐1930
    Panayotidis, E.L.; Stortz, P.
  • Contestation and conflict: the University of Toronto student yearbook Torontonensis as an ‘Appalling Sahara,’ 1898‐1910
    Panayotidis, E.L.; Stortz, P.
  • Mapping the Invisible Landscape: Folklore, Writing, and the Sense of Place
    Ryden, K.C.
  • Does a university have a culture?
    Silver, H.
  • Beneath the Ivory Tower: The Archaeology of Academia
    Skowronek, R.K.; Lewis, K.E.
  • Alexander Scott Carter, R.C.A., M.R.A.I.C: an appreciation
    Smith, L.V.
  • Storytelling, history and identity in William Par's portrait of three friends (1775)
    Stanworth, K.
  • The role of the university in historical perspective: research at the University of Toronto, 1930‐1945
    Stortz, P.
  • ‘Rescue our family from a living death’: refugee professors and the Canadian Society for the Protection of Science and Learning at the University of Toronto, 1935‐1946
    Stortz, P.
  • Historical Identities: The Professoriate in Canada
    Stortz, P.; Panayotidis, E.L.
  • Archives and the cure for institutional amnesia: college and university SAGA as part of the campus memory
    Thelin, J.R.
  • Paint, gesso, silver, gold and stone: Alexander Scott Carter, artist and architect
    Toews, J.
  • The Urban University and its Identity
    van der Wuste, H.
  • Disciplining Bodies in the Gymnasium: Memory, Monument and Modernism
    Vertinsky, P.; McKay, S.
  • A History of the University of Toronto, 1827‐1927
    Wallace, W.S.