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Since the first imaginary accounts of polar expeditions were published in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Arctic regions have fascinated travelers and armchair travelers alike. In the nineteenth century, when the search for the elusive Northwest Passage was at its peak, accounts of English polar expeditions, dioramas, and literary texts informed the British imagination of the Arctic. The narratives of Arctic exploration constructed the Arctic as a blank space on the map which only waited to be discovered, mapped and conquered, and the polar explorers as exemplary heroes of endurance. Postcolonial literature challenges these accounts of the Arctic and urges us to re-evaluate our Eurocentric vision of the north. In this seminar, we will explore colonial and postcolonial constructions of the Arctic, focusing on Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Rudy Wiebe's The Discovery of Strangers, but also taking into account short fiction. Please buy copies of the following novels: Mary Shelley, Frankenstein (Oxford World's Classics). Rudy Wiebe, The Discovery of Strangers (Toronto: Vintage, 1994). Other texts will be provided (reader: copy-shop Reckhammerweg). |
