The Paradoxical Discourse of Language and Silence in Some Contemporary North-American Texts on the Arctic
The Arctic has often been regarded (its various indigenous groups notwithstanding) as a desolate and silent void to be explored and defined by Euro-westerners, usuallyin terms of a masculine competitive ethos and an ethnocentric rhetoric of WesternEnlightenment and progress. Surprisingly, even many...
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2012
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Online Access: | https://septentrio.uit.no/index.php/nordlit/article/view/2299 https://doi.org/10.7557/13.2299 |
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ftunitroemsoe:oai:ojs.henry.ub.uit.no:article/2299 2023-05-15T14:32:24+02:00 The Paradoxical Discourse of Language and Silence in Some Contemporary North-American Texts on the Arctic Brøgger, Fredrik Chr. 2012-05-01 application/pdf https://septentrio.uit.no/index.php/nordlit/article/view/2299 https://doi.org/10.7557/13.2299 nor nor Septentrio Academic Publishing https://septentrio.uit.no/index.php/nordlit/article/view/2299/2130 https://septentrio.uit.no/index.php/nordlit/article/view/2299 doi:10.7557/13.2299 Copyright (c) 2012 Fredrik Chr. Brøgger http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ CC-BY Nordlit; No 29 (2012): Narrating the High North I; 29-46 Nordlit; Nr 29 (2012): Narrating the High North I; 29-46 1503-2086 0809-1668 The North-American Arctic arctic environmentalism arctic exploration arctic literature Canadian literature Barry Lopez Aritha van Herk John Moss info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion Peer-reviewed article Fagfellevurdert artikkel 2012 ftunitroemsoe https://doi.org/10.7557/13.2299 2021-08-16T15:44:44Z The Arctic has often been regarded (its various indigenous groups notwithstanding) as a desolate and silent void to be explored and defined by Euro-westerners, usuallyin terms of a masculine competitive ethos and an ethnocentric rhetoric of WesternEnlightenment and progress. Surprisingly, even many Norwegian arctic expeditionsof our own time tend to embody similar narratives of conquest and athletic prowess.Among contemporary North-American writers, however, this kind of discourse isprofoundly questioned, particularly by focusing on the problematic function oflanguage itself in our constructions of the Arctic. This article focuses on three North-American books in which the issue of the Euro-western linguistic appropriation ofthe Arctic, its natural environment as well as its peoples, is a major concern; they areall reflections on the issues of writing and silence with reference to the far north. Thethree books are: Barry Lopez' Arctic Dreams: Imagination and Desire in a NorthernLandscape (1987), Aritha van Herk's Places Far from Ellesmere (1990), and JohnMoss' Enduring Dreams: An Exploration of Arctic Landscape (1996). Central in allof them is the following issue: how to make the wordless landscape or the alienculture speak from under, as it were, the enormous compilation of centuries of Eurowesterntext. The article discusses four major strategies by which these three booksattempt to counteract and subvert earlier Euro-western ethnocentric and monologicnarratives of the Arctic: by the inclusion of feminine and indigenous voices; by thelegitimation of the sensuous life-world of the Arctic itself; by the self-reflexivesubversion of the authority of the language of their own texts; and by the use of astyle of paradox and contradiction. By way of such techniques, the books above try to create more open, dialogic and pluralistic readings of the Arctic. Article in Journal/Newspaper Arctic University of Tromsø: Septentrio Academic Publishing Arctic Lopez ENVELOPE(-63.567,-63.567,-64.850,-64.850) Nordlit 16 1 29 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
University of Tromsø: Septentrio Academic Publishing |
op_collection_id |
ftunitroemsoe |
language |
Norwegian |
topic |
The North-American Arctic arctic environmentalism arctic exploration arctic literature Canadian literature Barry Lopez Aritha van Herk John Moss |
spellingShingle |
The North-American Arctic arctic environmentalism arctic exploration arctic literature Canadian literature Barry Lopez Aritha van Herk John Moss Brøgger, Fredrik Chr. The Paradoxical Discourse of Language and Silence in Some Contemporary North-American Texts on the Arctic |
topic_facet |
The North-American Arctic arctic environmentalism arctic exploration arctic literature Canadian literature Barry Lopez Aritha van Herk John Moss |
description |
The Arctic has often been regarded (its various indigenous groups notwithstanding) as a desolate and silent void to be explored and defined by Euro-westerners, usuallyin terms of a masculine competitive ethos and an ethnocentric rhetoric of WesternEnlightenment and progress. Surprisingly, even many Norwegian arctic expeditionsof our own time tend to embody similar narratives of conquest and athletic prowess.Among contemporary North-American writers, however, this kind of discourse isprofoundly questioned, particularly by focusing on the problematic function oflanguage itself in our constructions of the Arctic. This article focuses on three North-American books in which the issue of the Euro-western linguistic appropriation ofthe Arctic, its natural environment as well as its peoples, is a major concern; they areall reflections on the issues of writing and silence with reference to the far north. Thethree books are: Barry Lopez' Arctic Dreams: Imagination and Desire in a NorthernLandscape (1987), Aritha van Herk's Places Far from Ellesmere (1990), and JohnMoss' Enduring Dreams: An Exploration of Arctic Landscape (1996). Central in allof them is the following issue: how to make the wordless landscape or the alienculture speak from under, as it were, the enormous compilation of centuries of Eurowesterntext. The article discusses four major strategies by which these three booksattempt to counteract and subvert earlier Euro-western ethnocentric and monologicnarratives of the Arctic: by the inclusion of feminine and indigenous voices; by thelegitimation of the sensuous life-world of the Arctic itself; by the self-reflexivesubversion of the authority of the language of their own texts; and by the use of astyle of paradox and contradiction. By way of such techniques, the books above try to create more open, dialogic and pluralistic readings of the Arctic. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Brøgger, Fredrik Chr. |
author_facet |
Brøgger, Fredrik Chr. |
author_sort |
Brøgger, Fredrik Chr. |
title |
The Paradoxical Discourse of Language and Silence in Some Contemporary North-American Texts on the Arctic |
title_short |
The Paradoxical Discourse of Language and Silence in Some Contemporary North-American Texts on the Arctic |
title_full |
The Paradoxical Discourse of Language and Silence in Some Contemporary North-American Texts on the Arctic |
title_fullStr |
The Paradoxical Discourse of Language and Silence in Some Contemporary North-American Texts on the Arctic |
title_full_unstemmed |
The Paradoxical Discourse of Language and Silence in Some Contemporary North-American Texts on the Arctic |
title_sort |
paradoxical discourse of language and silence in some contemporary north-american texts on the arctic |
publisher |
Septentrio Academic Publishing |
publishDate |
2012 |
url |
https://septentrio.uit.no/index.php/nordlit/article/view/2299 https://doi.org/10.7557/13.2299 |
long_lat |
ENVELOPE(-63.567,-63.567,-64.850,-64.850) |
geographic |
Arctic Lopez |
geographic_facet |
Arctic Lopez |
genre |
Arctic |
genre_facet |
Arctic |
op_source |
Nordlit; No 29 (2012): Narrating the High North I; 29-46 Nordlit; Nr 29 (2012): Narrating the High North I; 29-46 1503-2086 0809-1668 |
op_relation |
https://septentrio.uit.no/index.php/nordlit/article/view/2299/2130 https://septentrio.uit.no/index.php/nordlit/article/view/2299 doi:10.7557/13.2299 |
op_rights |
Copyright (c) 2012 Fredrik Chr. Brøgger http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.7557/13.2299 |
container_title |
Nordlit |
container_volume |
16 |
container_issue |
1 |
container_start_page |
29 |
_version_ |
1766305817749880832 |