The Arctic in Contemporary Literature: Colonial Legacies and Environmental Futures

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Abstract

The Arctic has long occupied a prominent place in the cultural imagination. From nineteenth-century polar expeditions to contemporary debates about climate change, resource extraction and geopolitical tensions, the region continues to capture public and literary attention despite remaining a place that relatively few people ever experience firsthand. 

At the same time, the Arctic is far from a straightforward concept: its boundaries are contested and its meanings shift across geographical, political and cultural contexts. This talk introduces the field of Arctic literary studies through an overview of contemporary fiction set in or concerned with the Arctic. 

After outlining the scope of the field and the central questions of her doctoral research, Lena will explore a selection of literary case studies to demonstrate how contemporary texts negotiate colonial legacies, environmental change and competing imaginaries of the Arctic.

Bio:

Lena Leimgruber Haraldsson is a third-year PhD student in English literature at the Department of Language Studies, Umeå University. Her research explores how contemporary literature imagines the Arctic as a space shaped by colonial histories, environmental change and competing ways of knowing. Drawing on perspectives from the environmental humanities, ecocriticism and postcolonial studies, she examines contemporary fiction in English, with a particular focus on speculative fiction, climate fiction and literary fiction.