My White Infinity: Constructions of post-heroic Antarctica in a selection of first-hand narratives by women.

• Main Author: Glenny, Alison
• Format: Other/Unknown Material
• Language: English
• Published: University of Canterbury 2017
• Subjects: Antarctic; Antarctic Peninsula; Ferguson; South Pole; The Antarctic; Antarc*; Antarctica; antartic*; South pole
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10092/13813

The 'Heroic Era' of Antarctic exploration is usually situated in the first quarter of the 20th century, or from around 1895 until the First World War. During this period the economic focus of exploration shifted to one of 'geographic and scientific discovery'�, typically by 'national land based exploring expeditions'� (Ferguson 1995: 5). For women, however, it could be argued that their 'Heroic Era' did not begin until the end of the 1940s, and continued into the 1970s. This is the era of female 'firsts': the first women to work in Antartica, to visit the South Pole, to traverse the continent on foot, and to travel as tourists. Unlike the first 'Heroic Era', this one is characterised less by the physical challenges posed by the natural environment than by the man-made barriers of masculine and institutional resistance to women's presence. Beginning with Jennie Darlington's 1957 account of her year on the Antarctic Peninsula with the Ronne Antarctic Research Expedition, and ending with the 2015 The Antarctic Book of Cooking and Cleaning, this review discusses the ways in which the selected narratives both unmake and remake the legacy of the Heroic Era as they represent Antarctica's changing human landscape, and the authors' presence within it.