Conference Announcement and Call for Papers
Arctic Discourses 2008
21-23 February 2008
Tromso, Norway
Abstract Submission Deadline: 15 September 2007
Registration Deadline: 1 November 2007
For further information, please go to:
http://uit.no/humfak/arkdisk/4?Language=en
or contact:
Silje Gaupseth
E-mail: silje.gaupseth [at] hum.uit.no
The conference "Arctic Discourses 2008" will be held on 21-23 February
2008 in Tromso, Norway. The conference is part of the research program
of the Arktiske diskurser project, based at the University of Tromso,
and is funded by the Research Council of Norway and University of
Tromso.
Descriptions of the Arctic and sub-Arctic provide rich material produced
both in the Arctic and in other parts of the world. The extent of this
descriptive material has increased considerably since the Romantic
period, hand in hand with the systematic scientific investigation of
these regions. These descriptions will often correspond more or less to
arctic realities, but also constitute their own reality: the way in
which the Arctic has been understood and imagined throughout history.
Taken together, they make up a discourse on the Arctic, formed both by
actual arctic experiences and its own intertextual continuities - in
addition to many other earlier and contemporaneous discourses, including
the discourse of literature.
This conference will concentrate on arctic discourses after Romanticism
up to the present day, using approaches developed within literary
studies. It will focus both on arctic discourse in literary texts and
literary discourse in non-literary descriptions of the Arctic. It will
examine the development of arctic discourses; the use of narrative,
figurative, and generic strategies in arctic discourses; and the effect
of changing communication technologies on arctic discourses. It will
also focus on contact zones between the European/American and the
Arctic, and cultures that identify themselves as both Arctic and
European/American.
Suggested themes for panels include:
- Romantic and post-romantic sublimes in arctic discourses
- Arcticism, arctic counter-discourses and arctic indigenous
literatures
- Gendering the Arctic
- Arctic, Antarctic, and Alpine discourses
- From exploration to sport: the history of arctic discourse
- Arctic travel writing
- Borders and limits in arctic discourses
- Living between the Arctic and the European/American
- Subject positions and identities in arctic discourse
- The Arctic in art and film
- Changing conceptions of northernness and arcticity
- Nature's discourses in the Arctic
- Arctic metaphors in fiction and poetry
- Approaching the Arctic with literary, cultural, and discourse analysis
- Changing technologies, changing media, changing arctic discourses
- Genre and the circulation of signs in arctic discourse
- Embodying/textualizing the Arctic in postmodern novels and popular
fictions
- Narrative in arctic expedition reports, travel writing, and reportage
For further information, to register, and submit an abstract, please go
to:
http://uit.no/humfak/arkdisk/4?Language=en