Humans & Antarctica: Theorising, Imagining & Discovering
25 January 2024
19:00 to 21:00
This talk is a brief history of humans and Antarctica from Ancient Greek theories of polar balance to the Antarctic Treaty signed in 1959. Using maps and literature, the ways in which people imagined the existence and composition of a great southern continent will be examined. Highlighting scientific and commercial motivations, the increasing human activity in the water/ice and lands of the far south will be shown from the eighteenth century’s sailing ships to the aircraft of the twentieth century. Liam Maloney attended University College Dublin and completed BA and MA with work centring on the tumultuous, mid-seventeenth century in Ireland. He has been part of research projects concerning Dublin, its schools and markets. Exploration of the polar regions, with a particular focus on Sir Ernest H. Shackleton, has been a large research theme over the last decade. He worked at the Shackleton Endurance exhibition of Frank Hurley’s photographs in Dún Laoghaire, Dublin, and maintains the Shackleton’s Endurance online presence. He has written for the James Caird Society Journal and was an historian of Norwegian Cruise Line’s maiden Antarctic season 2022-2023 aboard Norwegian Star. He lives in north county Dublin.
