Warming World, Frozen Fables: Histories of Imperialism and Imagination in the Arctic

Inaugural lecture by Professor Robert Rix, Department of English, Germanic and Romance Studies.

Abstract

The lecture will start with how nineteenth-century reports of a warming Arctic climate raised expectations of increased access to the region. The central case study will be the quest to rediscover the Norse colonists of Greenland, with whom Europe had lost contact four centuries earlier. By analysing British and American texts on the matter, we gain a new understanding of the complexities of Arctic imperialism, its ideological underpinnings, and legend's enduring impact on Western politics. The lecture will demonstrate how the beliefs surrounding the expected rediscovery of Greenland’s ‘lost colony’ influenced European and American cultural narratives in profound ways. The narratives of exploration and imperialism were closely linked to ideas about a changing climate, making the historical considerations relevant to today’s discussions. Studying the Arctic's cultural perceptions and how they impacted politics and literature presents a new interdisciplinary research agenda relevant to the Department of English, Germanic, and Romance Studies.