Environmental Humanities gathering #89: UArctic World Café on Ghosts

Ghosts in this context might be interpreted literally, as ‘the soul or spirit of a dead person or animal’ (OED) but might also be interpreted eco-critically, as the ‘return to multiple pasts, human and not human’ which, according to the editors of Arts of Living on a Damaged Planet (2017: G2), is the first step towards recognising alternative futures for our planet. Arctic literatures are replete with both kinds of ‘ghost’, from the malign spirit of the gengånger, ‘the one who walks again’ (135), who haunts Svalbard in Michelle Paver’s Gothic novel Dark Matter (2010), to the melting ice, reminiscent of damaged pasts and possible futures, in Paula Sankelo’s poem, ‘A glacier is drawn’ (2024).           

The aim of this World Café is to discuss this concept of the ‘haunted Arctic’ and how helpful it is to remember the past in Arctic literature and culture as a way of reimagining possible futures for the region. Possible questions for discussion are: 

1. How important are the concepts of ‘ghosts’ and the ‘haunted Arctic’ to your own research? 
2. How can literature, or imagined landscapes more generally, help us think differently about the ‘real’ world and the challenges of living in the Anthropocene?
3. Do ghosts (however we understand them) tell us about the past or do they act more as a guide for the future?    

As a starting point for the concept of ‘ghosts’ in the Anthropocene, attached is the 12-page Introduction to the Ghosts section of Arts of Living on a Damaged Planet, ed. A. Tsing et al. (2017). Paula Sankelo’s poem, ‘A glacier is drawn’ can be read online here: A glacier is drawn.