“The Only Almost Germ-Free Continent Left”
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 19006084 |
|---|---|
| Authors | E Leane (0000-0002-7954-6529, University of Tasmania, corresponding author), Charne Lavery (0000-0002-9907-4143, University of the Witwatersrand), M Nash (0000-0002-7429-4924, Australian National University) |
| Year | 2023 |
| Volume | 15 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 109-127 |
| Publication date | 2023-03-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Environmental Humanities (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2201-1919 • E-ISSN: 2201-1919 |
| Publisher | Duke University Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1215/22011919-10216184 |
| OpenAlex | W4323654483 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 18 |
This article examines the role of pandemics and viruses in cultural perceptions of Antarctica over the past century. In the popular imagination, Antarctica has often been framed as a place of purity, refuge, and isolation. In a series of fiction and screen texts from the nineteenth century to the present, viruses feature prominently. The texts fall into two categories: narratives in which Antarctica is the sole source of safety in a pandemic-ravaged world and those in which a virus (or another form of contagion) is discovered within the continent itself and needs to be contained. Viruses in these texts are not only literal but also metaphorical, taking the form of any kind of threatening infection, and as such are linked to texts in which Antarctic purity is discursively connected to racial and gendered exclusivity. Based on this comparison, the article argues that ideas of containment and contagion can have political connotations in an Antarctic context, to the extent that they are applied to particular groups of people in order to position them as “alien” to the Antarctic environment. The authors show that the recent media construction of Antarctica during COVID-19 needs to be understood against this disturbing aspect of the Antarctic imaginary, and also that narratives of Antarctic purity are imaginatively linked to both geopolitical exclusions and the melting of Antarctic ice
Archaeology · Art · Biology · Geography · Geopolitics · Linguistics · Literature · Narrative · Pandemic · Political science · Politics · Psychoanalysis · The Imaginary · Adventure Sports and Sensation Seeking · Geographies of human-animal interactions · History · Law · Philosophy · Polar Research and Ecology · Psychology
The Utopian Tradition of Russian Science Fiction
The implied border mechanisms of Antarctica
The Oceanic South
Antarctica as Cultural Critique
Viral Things”
Disease, Race and Empire
Who goes there? Science, fiction, and belonging in Antarctica
Aids as Monster in Science Fiction and Horror Cinema
Antarctica and Africa
Black Matters
Britain and the British Antarctic Territory in the wider geopolitics of the Antarctic and the Southern Ocean
| Unique citing works | 2 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 2 |
| Citation span | 2025 - 2025 (1) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 2 |