Brand Antarctica

This book looks excellent!

Out now from Hanne Nielsen. 

Happy #AntarcticaDay! The anniversary of the signing of the #AntarcticTreaty was the perfect date to launch my new book #Brand #Antarctica - published in the @UnivNebPress #Polar series https://t.co/PU1SLAXx9h pic.twitter.com/5CEa0wb6Ke

— Dr Hanne Nielsen (@WideWhiteStage) December 1, 2023

Cover image is here:

Description of the book from Hanne:

Antarctica is, and has always been, very much “for sale.” Whales, seals, and ice have all been marketed as valuable commodities, but so have the stories of explorers. The modern media industry developed in parallel with land-based Antarctic exploration, and early expedition leaders needed publicity to generate support for their endeavors. Their lectures, narratives, photographs, and films were essentially advertisements for their adventures. At the same time, popular media began to use the newly encountered continent to draw attention to commercial products. These advertisements both trace the commercialization of Antarctica and reveal how commercial settings have shaped the dominant imaginaries of the place.

By contextualizing and analyzing Antarctic advertisements from the late nineteenth century to the present, Brand Antarctica identifies five key framings of the South Polar continent: 

a place for heroes, 

a place of extremity, 

a place of purity, 

a place to protect, and

 a place that transforms. 

Demonstrating how these conceptual framings of Antarctica in turn circulate through our culture, Hanne Elliot Fønss Nielsen challenges common assumptions about Antarctica’s past and present, encouraging readers to rethink their own relationship with the Far South.

Hanne has clearly been developing this book for a while as there is a range of papers on ResearchGate exploring some of the stories from the last century which connect with this idea of Antarctica as a brand, and her PhD thesis from 2017 (available from this link) forms the backbone of the book one imagines, with some more recent additions.

At the moment it's out of my price range, but I've downloaded the PhD thesis and will be exploring this over the Christmas break.

Ron Bartle: a life well lived

If you don't know who Ron Bartle is, this film will tell you everything you need to know... and his philosophy on life....

An inspiration for Mark Beaumont, who we followed on some of his earlier expeditions including cycling around the world in less than 80 days, which is still astonishing to think about.

Expeditions Unpacked

I have this book on pre-order.

‘A fascinating and unique look at these celebrated expeditions. Ed Stafford knows all too well how important an explorer’s kit can be and this brilliant book gives great insight into the role it plays.’ —Sir Ranulph Fiennes

In this unique and enthralling book, explorer and survivalist Ed Stafford curates 25 great expeditions through the lens of the kit these remarkable explorers took with them. In an environment where lack of preparation could mean certain death, the equipment carried, ridden and sailed into uncharted territories could mean the success or failure of an expedition. Was it simply a case of better provisions and preparation that helped Amundsen beat Scott to the South Pole? And how has the equipment taken to Everest changed since Hillary’s first ascent?

Through carefully curated photographs and specially commissioned illustrations we can see at a glance the scale, style and complexity of the items taken into the unknown by the greatest explorers of all time, and the impact each item had on their journey. How it potentially saved a life, or was purely for comfort or entertainment, and how these objects of survival have evolved and adapted as science advances, and we plunge further into the extremes.

Conquering fears and mountains, adversity and wild jungles, each item these explorers flew, pulled or hauled played a crucial role in their ambitious and dangerous missions to find out a little more about our world. Through each of these objects, we can gain a better understanding ourselves.

Get an intimate view of these and more amazing expeditions:
Roald Amundsen, race to the Pole: Norwegian expedition (snowshoes, Primus stove, piano, violin, gramophone… )
Amelia Earhart, first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean (Bendix radio direction finder, parachutes, emergency life raft, rouge… )
Tim Slessor, first overland from London to Singapore (machetes, crowbar, typewriter, Remington dry shaver, tea… )
Nellie Bly, around the world in 72 days (Mumm champagne, accordion, silk waterproof wrap, dark gloves… )

"Sir, did you hear about Ben Saunders!"

During the last term, we spent some time following Ben Saunders on his attempt to cross Antarctica solo, and one of the first things that many students said to me on the first day back was whether I'd heard about his decision to stop at the South Pole, which I had... A lot of interest generated.
Check Ben's website for more. 
We're hoping to get down to the RGS to hear his Monday night lecture at the RGS-IBG later in the year.
He's also been on Desert Island Discs

Picture from Ben's Instagram page.

Dan's Wild Cities Walk

Dan Raven Ellison completed many changes last year, but one of them was to walk across all the cities and National Parks in the UK.
This involved over 2.4 million steps.

Dan wore a special headset as he was walking which was able to record his emotions, and the data from those trips is going to be released later this year.

We're looking forward to Dan visiting King's Ely later in the year.

If you're in Cardiff on April the 19th, why not go and see Dan speak... An Eventbrite page is here

‘What would it be like to walk 1,686km across all of the UK’s 15 national parks and 69 cities while wearing a mind-reading EEG? That’s exactly what Daniel Raven-Ellison did last year to explore how his emotions changed as he explored different kinds of places. Join us for this inspiring talk as Daniel shares stories, thoughts and ideas from his adventures before making the case for a surge of public geography activism. Daniel will go on to share his biggest public geography project, a campaign to make London the world’s first National Park City. You can connect with Daniel in advance of the lecture on Twitter at @DanRavenEllison.’

Wine reception (Viriamu Jones Gallery, Main Building) - 18:00
Keynote lecture - 18:30

Icons of England

Year 5 and 6 Explorers (in the weekly activities slot) are starting the summer term of exploration with a look at Great Britain (as we run up to the Queen's 90th Birthday). Today, I went through 100 icons of England as voted for in a web poll some time ago (I used it as part of my Pilot GCSE unit on the representation of places). There are also connections to be made with this year's title for the 'Young Geographer of the Year' competition, which looks at changes in Britain (full details should appear in the next week or so)

Students were asked to identify the icons they'd heard of from the list, and those they hadn't. I did a quick whistle-stop tour of all those they hadn't... and they were then asked to identify their chosen Top 10. This is the collation of the whole group's choices.

We will be researching these next week, to produce a visual collage representing Britain, and then focussing on Ely...

Made with Tagxedo.