About

The conference Cartographies of Loss: The Afterlives of War, held September 15–18, 2025, at Carleton University (Ottawa, ON), will investigate the often-overlooked links between corporeality and cartography. Central to the conference is the question of how to reconcile survivors’ experiences, the voices of the dead, and the need to map post-catastrophic urban infrastructures and ecologies. 

A key theme is the idea of present absence. Reflections on the dead encompass not only mortal remains but also posthumous traces of life lingering in the urban landscape as spectral witnesses to past lives, political violence, and disavowed histories. These absences are active—structuring spaces of habitation, interrupting linear narratives of progress, and refusing closure. Conference collaborators aim to map these afterlives of the dead: the lost, discarded, and ungrievable remainders embedded in the urban present. 

In an era of renewed armed conflicts, geopolitical upheaval, and the erosion of postwar peace structures, a critical question emerges: how to map loss in the face of a politics that violently absents what is present? Addressing this requires a wider range of perspectives on the nature of destruction and loss of life. The conference will ask: How can experiences of survival, loss, and resilience be inclusively and locally represented? How can mapping and emerging technologies convey material and immaterial heritage in post-disaster reconstruction? What is at stake when traces of survival or loss are absent, unrecognized, or erased? 

The conference aims to create a transdisciplinary research network committed to mapping catastrophes and their long-term impacts with compassion and openness. 

An accompanying exhibition will juxtapose works by Berlin-based artist Sonya Schönberger with rare WWII damage maps of German cities held in the MacOdrum Library’s Archives and Special Collections at Carleton University. Both the conference and exhibition will serve as spaces for conversation, idea generation, and connection.

Conference organizers: Jerzy Elżanowski, Robin V. Hueppe, and Elizabeth Harding

Planning committee: Ella Chmielewska, Mikkel Dack, Carmen Enss, Alex Langlois, Piotr Leśniak, Zoya Masoud, Stuart Murray, Franny Nudelman, and Susan Ross

Student assistants: Teresa Keuleman and Jason Derouin