Biography

Adán Ramírez-Figueroa is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures at Harvard University. Before joining Harvard, he received a B.A. and M.A. from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. His research interests include the socio-ideological basis of medieval and Golden Age literature in the Iberian Peninsula; Transatlantic literature and its cartography; and Manuscript Studies.

Project Summary

This project aims to understand the Imago Mundi as it existed in the centuries leading to the first global explorations. It examines the image of the world cultivated by Spaniards and Portuguese, and the Mediterranean sources from which they received these ideas. It explores how they reconciled multiple literary traditions with the graphical representations of the world presented in the portolan charts and mappaemundi, and how they employed them to navigate the world. By analyzing multiple forms of representation it is possible to see the connections between medieval thought and the early modern world. Understanding these connections can enhance our understanding of certain phenomena first consolidated in the Early Modern world, such as colonization and epidermic racialization. A deep exploration of the Imago Mundi can illuminate how the first sailors perceived their relationships with the world and creatures that inhabited it. This project looks into the sources that shaped those ideas of the world (Italian cartography, Mediterranean navigation, mathematical treatises, etc.) and analyzes how they were transferred from one medium to another (e.g. from literary to graphic, or vice versa).