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LAURA LO PRESTI
Position
Ricercatrice a tempo det. art. 24 c.3 lett. A L. 240/2010
Address
VIA DEL SANTO, 26 - PADOVA
Telephone
Laura Lo Presti earned her PhD in European Cultural Studies from the University of Palermo. She is currently a Junior Assistant Professor (RtdA) of Geography and a member of the Steering Committee at the Centre for Advanced Studies in Mobility & Humanities, within the Department of Historical, Geographical, and Antiquity Sciences.
Her research adopts a cultural and political approach to geography, integrating theoretical and methodological perspectives from visual studies, cultural cartography, and critical theory. She works across two main research clusters: critical migration studies and the cartographic humanities. Her work explores the contemporary uses of cartographic practices in contemporary art, migration, and border governance in Europe, as well as the construction of national identities. Additionally, she examines the historical role of cartography in shaping the geographical imaginaries of European empires.
She has held research fellowships at several institutions, including The Open University (with Gillian Rose), Maynooth University (with Rob Kitchin), Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona (with Antoni Luna), and The Groningen Research Institute for the Study of Culture at the University of Groningen (with Luis Lobo-Guerrero).
She has authored over 40 publications, including three books: Cartografie (In)esauste (FrancoAngeli, 2019), Mapping, Connectivity and the Making of European Empires (Rowman & Littlefield, 2021, co-authored with L. Lobo-Guerrero and F. Dos Reis), and The Routledge Handbook of Cartographic Humanities (co-edited with Tania Rossetto). She also contributed an entry on cartography and migration to The Encyclopedia of Mobilities (Elgar, 2022) and has published extensively in international handbooks and journals.
Selected publications:
“Reimagining the National Map” in Dialogues in Human Geography, 2021, pp. 1–23 (with T. Rossetto)
“Mapping Coexistence in Italy” in Political Geography, 85, 2021, pp. 1–11
“Pandemic Cartographies: A Conversation on Mappings, Imaginings, and Emotions” in Mobilities, 6(1), 2021, pp. 134–153 (with A. Pase, T. Rossetto, and G. Peterle)
“The Migrancies of Maps” in Mobilities, 15(6), 2020, pp. 911–929
Notices
Office hours
at Palazzo Wollemborg, Via del Santo 26, terzo piano.
Ricevimento: venerdì, ore 15-17, su richiesta di appuntamento scrivendo alla email della docente laura.lopresti@unipd.it Appointments must be requested in advance by writing to laura.lopresti@unipd.it.
Research Area
Humanistic and Critical Cartography – I explore the role of cartography in shaping geographical imaginaries, both historically and in contemporary contexts.
Critical Migration and Border Studies – I analyze the use of cartographic practices in the governance of migration and European borders.
Political and Postcolonial Geography – I study the relationship between geography, power, and the construction of national identities, with a focus on the decolonization of geographical space.
Geography and Visual Arts – I examine the connection between geography, contemporary art, and media, with particular interest in cinema, literature, and artistic practices that use cartography as an expressive language.
Mobility and the Anthropocene – I investigate spatial transformations related to globalization, ecological crises, and new forms of human and non-human mobility.
Thesis proposals
Thesis proposals on the following topics:
History of geographical thought
Postcolonial geography
Gender geography, space, and feminism
Humanistic, cultural, and creative cartography
Critical cartography
Migration and mobility
Critical border studies
Anthropocene
Urban geography
Political geography
Geography and art
Geography and media (cinema, video games, literature, music)
