Environmental Imaginaries of the Arctic in the 21st Century Travel Writing
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 22201510 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Ekaterina Purgina (0000-0001-5865-446X, University of Rijeka), Andrey Menshikov (0000-0003-1070-2551, University of Central Asia) |
| Year | 2023 |
| Volume | 7 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 174-189 |
| Publication date | 2023-12-27 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Changing Societies and Personalities (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2587-6104 • E-ISSN: 2587-8964 |
| Publisher | Ural Federal University (PUBLISHER • RU) |
| DOI | 10.15826/csp.2023.7.4.257 |
| OpenAlex | W4392221664 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 22 |
Contemporary travel accounts engage with the ecocritical agenda, examining the global environmental crisis caused by human actions. In contrast to earlier narratives that presented the Arctic as a territory to be “claimed,” today’s travelers predominantly view it as a territory to be preserved. Amid the dialectic of destruction and preservation, new environmental imaginaries emphasize the interconnectedness of nature and human history, employing literary techniques to convey this interdependence. William E. Glassley in his book A Wilder Time: Notes From a Geologist at the Edge of the Greenland Ice (2018) adopts a “trans-scalar” perspective for narrating his Arctic journeys, seamlessly shifting between microscopic and macroscopic views of the planet, its elements and inhabitants. Glassley’s imaginary of the Arctic as an “indivisible whole” draws from geological and biological sciences. As a geologist, he underscores the unity of Earth’s substances, highlighting the entanglement of geo- and lifecycles. The Arctic, devoid of history during travelers’ presence, reveals its story through geological analysis of collected specimens. Ice, as an archive of planetary history, surpasses human records. Travel literature thus contributes to crafting an environmental imaginary rooted in substantial temporal interconnectedness, addressing the Anthropocene’s challenges
Anthropocene · Archaeology · Arctic · Art · Dialectic · Environmental ethics · Environmental history · Epistemology · Geography · Geologist · Literature · Narrative · The arctic · The Imaginary · Arctic and Russian Policy Studies · History · Indigenous Studies and Ecology · Philosophy · Polar Research and Ecology · Psychology · Geology · Oceanography
The Environmental Imagination
What Is Water?
Starving Polar Bears and Melting Ice
Russia's Arctic Strategies and the Future of the Far North
Meanings and Values of Water in Russian Culture
Arctic Doom, Arctic Boom
Contesting the Arctic
Enduring polar explorers’ Arctic imaginaries and the promotion of neoliberalism and colonialism in modern Greenland
Writing travel in the Anthropocene
Where humanism finds its ends
The Climate of History
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |