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Anthropocene Antarctica offers new ways of thinking about the 'Continent for Science and Peace' in a time of planetary environmental change. In the Anthropocene, Antarctica has become central to the Earth's future. Ice cores taken from its interior reveal the deep environmental history of the planet and warming ocean currents are ominously destabilising the glaciers around its edges, presaging sea-level rise in decades and centuries to come. At the same time, proliferating research stations and tourist numbers challenge stereotypes of the continent as the 'last wilderness.' The Anthropocene brings Antarctica nearer in thought, entangled with our everyday actions. If the Anthropocene signals the end of the idea of Nature as separate from humans, then the Antarctic, long considered the material embodiment of this idea, faces a radical reframing.
Understanding the southern polar region in the twenty-first century requires contributions across the disciplinary spectrum. This collection paves the way for researchers in the Environmental Humanities, Law and Social Sciences to engage critically with the Antarctic, fostering a community of scholars who can act with natural scientists to address the globally significant environmental issues that face this vitally important part of the planet.
List of contents
Acknowledgements
List of Contributors
Foreword
Sanjay Chaturvedi
1 Anthropocene Antarctica: Approaches, issues and debates
ELIZABETH LEANE AND JEFFREY MCGEE
PART 1: Governance and geopolitics
2 Governing Antarctica in the Anthropocene
TIM STEPHENS
3 Subglacial nationalisms
ALAN D. HEMMINGS
4 Frozen Eden lost? Exploring discourses of geoengineering Antarctica
JEFFREY MCGEE
5 The Anthropocene melt: Antarctica’s geologic politics
JUAN FRANCISCO SALAZAR
PART 2: Cultural texts and representations
6 Ice and the ecothriller: Popular representations of Antarctica in the Anthropocene
ELIZABETH LEANE
7 Listening ‘at the sea ice edge’: Compositions based on soundscape recordings made in Antarctica
CAROLYN PHILPOTT
8 Save the penguins: Antarctic advertising and the PR of protection
HANNE NIELSEN
PART 3: Inhabitations and place
9 Indigenising the heroic era of Antarctic exploration
BEN MADDISON
10 Populating Antarctica: Chilean families in the frozen continent
NELSON LLANOS
11 Placing the past: The McMurdo Dry Valleys and the problem of geographical specificity in Antarctic history
ADRIAN HOWKINS
PART 4: Conclusion
12 Antarctica looking forward: Four themes
JEFFREY MCGEE AND ELIZABETH LEANE
Index
About the author
Elizabeth Leane is Professor of English at the School of Humanities/Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, University of Tasmania.
Jeffrey McGee is Senior Lecturer in Climate Change, Marine and Antarctic Law at the Faculty of Law/Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, University of Tasmania.
Summary
Anthropocene Antarctica offers new ways of thinking about the ‘Continent for Science and Peace’ in a time of planetary environmental change.
