UC the venue to imagine Antarctica
Published by Communications and Development
21 August 2008
Examining the Earth's southernmost continent from a cultural perspective will be on the agenda for those taking part in an Antarctic Conference being held at the University of Canterbury next month.
The Imagining Antarctica Conference is being convened and hosted by Gateway Antarctica, UC's centre for Antarctic studies and research, in partnership with Massey University and the University of Tasmania.
Drawing on the arts, social sciences and humanities, the three-day conference from 4-6 September will focus attention on the ways we perceive and represent the frozen continent. It will be the first humanities-based Antarctic studies conference and will be followed in 2010 by another at the University of Tasmania in Hobart.
“For Gateway Antarctica and the University of Canterbury this conference on Antarctic arts complements the usual conferences we hold on Antarctic science,” said Gateway Antarctica Centre Manager and conference convenor Michelle Rogan-Finnemore . “Our aim is to highlight the multi-disciplinary aspects of Antarctic research.”
Imagining Antarctica has been timed to coincide with The Press Christchurch Writers' Festival and a number of the conference's keynote addresses will be delivered by international writers also in town to speak at the literary event.
One of these is English writer Francis Spufford, the author of I May Be Some Time: Ice and the English imagination, a seminal and award-winning cultural history of the British obsession with polar exploring. He will open the conference with a talk looking at the roles for the southern continent in twentieth century culture.
Another highlight of the conference will be the public talk by author and broadcaster Vanessa Collingridge on the evening of Thursday 4 September (the opening session of the writers' festival). She will focus on her acclaimed biography of eighteenth century explorer Captain James Cook, which was made into a prize-winning documentary series Captain Cook: Obsession and Discovery which aired on Prime in New Zealand earlier this year.
The third keynote speaker at the conference is American Dr Elena Glasberg from Princeton University whose dissertation on “Antarcticas of the Imagination” led to a life-long academic interest in Antarctica, studied from a number of perspectives including postcolonial studies and geopolitics, feminism, law and science.
Home-grown talent included in the line-up of speakers includes poet and creative writing lecturer Professor Bill Manhire, poet and playwright Bernadette Hall and photographer Ann Noble.
For further information please contact:
Michelle Rogan-Finnemore
Centre Manager
Gateway Antarctica
Ph: (03) 364 2273
michelle.finnemore@canterbury.ac.nz
or:
Maria De Cort
Communications Officer
University of Canterbury
Tel: +64 3 364 2072
Fax: +64 3 364 2679
maria.decort@canterbury.ac.nz