Book Launch: Anti-Atlas: Critical Area Studies from the East of the West
Posted on 16th July, 2025
Join the authors and editors of Anti-Atlas for a lively discussion on the future of Area Studies in a rapidly shifting global landscape.
Date: Tuesday 22 July 2025
Time: 17:30–19:00 BST
Location: The Moot Court, Bentham House, UCL Laws, 4–8 Endsleigh Gardens, London WC1H 0EG
Hosted by: PPV (FRINGE Centre UCL/SSEES; UCL European Institute) and the Tbilisi Architecture Biennale
Admission is free but registration is required.
👉 https://www.eventbrite.com/e/area-studies-on-trial-tickets-1489197512849
About the book
The full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine has brought renewed urgency to questions about how we understand and study regions of the world. Anti-Atlas responds to this moment by challenging the conventions of the traditional atlas, including its assumptions about knowledge, power and spatial hierarchy.
Bringing together an eclectic mix of authors from Eastern and Western Europe, the UK and North America, the volume explores how Area Studies can be reimagined through heterodox, vernacular, undisciplined and collaborative approaches. The book includes a wide range of genres, from scholarly essays and travel guides to autobiographical reflections and data visualisations, each offering a different lens on what it means to think critically about place.
“Anti-Atlas is an imaginative, brave attempt to reframe area studies, simultaneously rebuilding ‘our images and cartographies of the world’… an essential antidote to knowledge produced in the service of empires, past or present.”
— Aida A. Hozić, University of Florida
Event details
This event is open to all and will be of particular interest to those working in Area Studies, critical geography, postcolonial theory and interdisciplinary research. It will take place in person at UCL Bentham House.
Admission is free but registration is required.
👉 https://www.eventbrite.com/e/area-studies-on-trial-tickets-1489197512849