Antarctica: Everyone's Home, is a glorious metaphor on several levels. First, as a continent protected by the international Antarctic Treaty, no country will (hopefully) ever own Antarctica, and it is a place of peace and inquiry. Second, as such, it is everyone's home, and that functions concurrently amongst all research stations on Antarctica. Although these bases are national and sometimes multinational, for the most part, the scientists and support staff are not related familially, but once on Antarctica, they are forced to become a family. Third, each speaker will address the topics of home, family, longing, life, and/or death, in specific, individual ways (see below please). Although purportedly Antarctica seems to be for natural and scientific inquiry, many countries have hosted programs for the arts and humanities, sustaining individuals such as writers and artists. Furthermore, the fields of academic scholarship in the Antarctic humanities are especially burgeoning right now, as professors and independent scholars are looking towards the polar regions and seeing the rich treasures that lay before us. Currently, there are 12 people around the world who have published on Antarctic literature, including the organizer of this session, Ellen Frye. To date, she is still the only scholar in or from North America to do so, and she is most encouraging of e.c.r.s (early career researchers) to join the fertile field, and to that end the other presenters are in that range.

Because there is a paucity of publications about Antarctic literature and culture, this session is of utmost importance. At M.L.A. 2024, there was the first session dedicated to Antarctica, and it was fairly well attended, sparking interest amongst the audience and renewed enthusiasm for the subject amongst the presenters. The Ne.M.L.A. has held two sessions thus far about Antarctica, and although the premiere event amongst regional branches, it is still limited in scope and prestige as compared to M.L.A. itself. The Modern Language Association has a perceived obligation to further the humanities and support innovative research, and there is no better way to do this than by supporting Antarctica.

There are three committed speakers for this session, and each will have 15 minutes to share their findings, which will leave plenty of time for questions (there are always questions about Antarctica!) and robust discussion.

Our first presentation, "Bringing Antarctica Home: Theatre, Performance, and Social Engagement," explores the notion that theatre is an important vehicle to draw society’s attention to Antarctica, which is posited as everyone on earth's home. Dr. Frye will analyze two canonical plays, David Young’s Inexpressible Island and Ted Tally’s Terra Nova, in which the actor-spectator relationship grows to such an extent that the spectator begins to believe him or herself to be part of the play, experiencing the thoughts and emotions of the characters. These playwrights’ adept deployment of dramatic devices invites the spectators to feel connected to the dramatic action, with the hope of their cultivating an increased awareness of, concern about, and eventually, passion for Antarctica, everyone's home. That is social impact in its finest and most critical hour.

This leads directly into the second presentation, "Writing Women into the Ice: The Evolution of Women's Voices in Antarctic Literature," which examines the transformation of women's representation in Antarctic literature from symbolic absence to embodied presence, exploring how this shift has reshaped our understanding of Antarctica as “everyone's home.” By analyzing this literary progression, Prof. Bowen will demonstrate how women's narratives have transformed Antarctica from an exclusive masculine domain into a more inclusive “home” that accommodates diverse human experiences of longing, belonging, and becoming.

The final presentation ties everything together (theatre and prose, social engagement and gender studies) in, "Infinite Intimacy: The Cosmic Everyday in the Antarctic Landscape of Marie Darrieussecq’s White," exploring the Antarctic landscape as a space where everyday life unfolds in a paradoxical environment of intense intimacy and alienating extremity, and where the human is confronted with contradictory feelings of limitlessness and impossibility. Dr. Rodríguez will explore how a reading of Antarctica as an intimate landscape reconfigures on a more human scale the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty that identifies the continent as a “natural reserve, devoted to peace and science.”

Fortunately, there is a diversity of voice, gender, and topic here: male, female, nationality, as well as genre. There is something for everyone in this special session, according to interest and passion, and quite frankly, this represents in miniature what Antarctica can be for everyone: everything!