Description
Science in the Arctic changed dramatically over the course of the nineteenth century, when early, scattered attempts in the region to gather knowledge about all aspects of the natural world transitioned to a more unified Arctic science under the First International Polar Year in 1882. The IPY brought together researchers from multiple countries with the aim of undertaking systematic and coordinated experiments and observations in the Arctic and Antarctic. Harsh conditions, intense isolation, and acute danger inevitably impacted the making and communicating of scientific knowledge. At the same time, changes in ideas about what it meant to be an authoritative observer of natural phenomena were linked to tensions in imperial ambitions, national identities, and international collaborations of the IPY. Through a focused study of travel narratives in the British, Danish, Canadian, and American contexts, Nanna Katrine L ders Kaalund uncovers not only the transnational nature of Arctic exploration, but also how the publication and reception of literature about it shaped an extreme environment, its explorers, and their scientific practices. She reveals how, far beyond the metropole--in the vast area we understand today as the North American and Greenlandic Arctic--explorations and the narratives that followed ultimately influenced the production of field science in the nineteenth century.
Author: Nanna Katrine Luders Kaalund
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
Published: 05/11/2021
Pages: 240
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.01lbs
Size: 9.10h x 6.20w x 1.10d
ISBN13: 9780822946595
ISBN10: 0822946599
BISAC Categories:
- Science | History
- History | Polar Regions
- Travel | General
About the Author
Nanna Katrine Lüders Kaalund is a postdoctoral research associate in the Scott Polar Research Institute at the University of Cambridge, working as part of the Arctic Cultures project. Her research centers on the intersection of Arctic exploration, print culture, science, religion, and medicine in the modern period with a focus on the British and Danish imperial worlds. Kaalund is also a postdoctoral associate at Darwin College.