Unknown Speaker  00:02
Okay, the title of my paper is the north polar expeditions of Robert De Perry, Matthew Henson and Frederick Cook, a semiology of American nationalists and masculinist discourses. The North Pole is represented as a much sought after goal of US national significance at the beginning of the 20th century. I am interested in the cultural representations of American north polar explorations and in how concrete social meanings have been given to this abstract space, the North Pole at this specific historical moment. My interest specifically is to connect the mythical schema of the North Pole to different male cultural identities of the US. Early north polar expeditions which began in the late 15th century, were searches were searches by European nations for shorter commercial ship routes from the Atlantic to the Pacific by way of the Arctic Ocean. The British led the search for the Northwest Passage around the Canadian Archipelago, while the Dutch search for the Northeast Passage around the northern coast of Russia. Attempts to find a Northwest Passage were made by British explorers, such as Sir Francis Drake, Sir Martin Frobisher in 1607. Henry Hudson in 1778, Captain James Cook 1829 Sir John Ross and an 1845 search on Franklin among the Dutch explorers searching for the Northeast Passage where William barons in 1594 William Baffin and in 1822, William Scoresby, Jr. It was not until 18 CMDA that the Northeast Passage was first traverse by Baron boarding school a Swedish explorer, the Norwegian route, Amundson was the first to sail through the Northwest Passage in 1906. Although the sight of the North Pole itself excited fascination and curiosity, the search for the North Pole as a goal in its own right, did not occur until the first half of the 19th century. While the search for the northwest and northeast passages was rooted in commercial motives, the struggle to reach the North Pole was fueled in large part by national pride, there was a rivalry amongst nations to attain this purely symbolic objective. The interest in the north pole as an institutionalized activity that generated its own discourse began when the British Parliament offered a reward for the first person to reach the pole in 1827. After 1827, there were many attempts to reach the pole by men of different nations, the British explorer at Perry was the first of many to try to the pole. Since the North Pole was inaccessible by boat as it was located on the polar ice, new means of transportation more sought in order to reach it. Perry had tried to reach the pole using sledges pulled by reindeer in 1829. In 1897, a Scandinavian group of three men attempted to reach the North Pole by balloon. Both expeditions were unsuccessful, and all the members in the balloon expedition died. For the purposes of this presentation, I will focus on the two American expeditions of Robert Perry and Frederick cook. Henson was the black American Explorer on the Perry expedition. Well, so both parties Korean cooks claimed to have discovered the North Pole, only Robert Perry's 1909 expedition was given credit as the official discovering Perry, Perry and American naval officer had the support of Theodore Roosevelt, the president of the US at that time, if we can maybe have the slide. There they are.

Unknown Speaker  04:07
As well as the leading geographical, political, economic, economical and cultural institutions. The claim of the 1908 expedition led by an American physician Dr. Frederick Cook has been officially had been officially discredited. The controversy over cook and Perry's claim still persists, although widespread public support for cooks claim disappeared around World War Two World War One. Both Perry and cooks claims were revealed as hoaxes in the 1960s. It was argued that neither of them made it near the pole. Recently, there has been even in a renewed interest concerning the veracity of each of their claims. The turn of the 20th century was a period of anxiety for the US as an ex British colony. The US wanted to establish a place for itself amongst the other world powers, its desire to compete with Europe empire building activities reached a climax in 1898. With its success in the Spanish American War, the fledgling us us empires boundaries were extended to include new territories Cuba, Puerto Rico, Hawaii and the Philippines. The US has interest in obtaining the North Pole, so shortly afterwards could be seen as a projection of its imperialist enterprise into an extra terrestrial space. located literally on the boundaries of the world, the conquest of the North Pole was thought of as a pointed symbol of the US is growing strength to define and literally more the periphery of the world would be a suitable way to reveal the control the fitting a nation that aspired to be at the center. The desire for this aspiring world power to touch a literal mathematical point, without length, breadth, or thickness, to make visible a space that was sealed off from the scrutiny of a preceding subject, to feel a space of floating eyes, an empty space, a dead space, to penetrate a virgin space, which was already full, were nothing could be added, and nothing could be stained, to define a space without reference or shape, to make real, the unreal, to give life to what was barren, to offer a true language to deal with the void to prove reality by penetrating the abstract. This masculinist desire and nationalist drive is located in the register of the imaginary the North Pole became a fitting symbol of American imperialist intentions and growing world power, precisely because it represented the imaginary of a whole culture. I am interested in using the North Pole as an example that will allow me to come to terms with the symbolic in relation to the imaginary. To do this, I will examine how the discourse of the North Pole is projected into the symbolic field. The North Pole can only be socially constructed as it isn't a tangible object. It is not surprising that the particular representations of the conquest of the pole were usually not images of the pole itself, but maps or charts of the polar explorers route. Although as a site, the North Pole was the very embodiment of the inauthentic the unreal. In its representation, it became transformed into an image of stability, wholeness and permanence. Before its discovery, it was fantasize in one illustration is being made out of Topaz or diamond. In this one, it is in the shape of a pyramid or phallus. After its discovery, it was represented as a fixed point of world significance. representations of the pole literally substituted the North Pole for a raw mineral to be discovered and then produced by capital. One representation, which typically transformed the north pole into an image of an American commodity, shows the American flag hoisted at the pole with the caption, part of the caption the Stars and Stripes planted upon the axis of the world, it's from the axis of the world that the Earth moves the axis of the world, an actual mathematical point becomes an object that can not only be discovered, but represented with the National tag and American flag. With the additional phrase The goal of 1000 years, the event of the discovery becomes the capitalist version of the quest. The object of desire is non material has eluded capture for 1000 years. Once captured, the North Pole becomes a symbol that the market system has permeated the world. Even places where there is no land can be charted and marketed. A mathematical point can be ingeniously be packaged into a national symbol. The representation of the North Pole as a much sought after goal of US national significance, also provided an occasion to represent the male hero also a cultural construct, as centered and home. Bus portraits of the dauntless explores here are superimposed over the image of a map. Male rivalry is implied not explicit, but as part of the requisite struggle for the desired metaphorical overview needed for world domination. Yet, while the male hero explore it is represented in the popular media as centered and whole, it is only at the level of form in an ideology that this figure is in control of his experience. The autobiographical accounts of the polar explorers seem to reveal another story. I will examine how Perry cook and Henson describe the lived truth of their experience. I am interested in analyzing how the three explorers expressed through language The tension of an experience in which mastery depended on finding an object that could not be seen. The accounts I'm using are taken from cook Perry and Hanson's published autobiographies cook. My entertainment of the poll was published in 1913. parodies the North Pole in 1910. And Henson's a negro explorer at the North Pole in 1911. I must show you pictures of these explorers This is Perry afterwards

Unknown Speaker  10:31
little worn out Hamsun the black American that I'm joined his expedition

Unknown Speaker  10:38
and cook. Okay, so I'll put on Perry. Well, I taught the worn out explorer. Okay. Both these accounts, all three of these accounts are stories. Okay, we canceled these three men about entry into a privilege mythical space. That turns out to be also physically dangerous, and then emergence from it. For cook and Perry the pole is not the dark place. There is tremendous glare. It is all exterior, but you need to shield your eyes from it. Perry writes about how he has been, quote subjected to brilliant and unremitting daylight for days and weeks. Cook takes refuge in the imagination and transforms the monotony of the never ending day of the polar region into a poetic vision. For him, the pole is a burning orange world, floored with a sparkling sheen of millions of diamonds. There's too much awareness by these men that they have risked their lives to act out an illusory spectacle. Their embarrassment at finding themselves as real actors in a deadly fiction can be can be read between the lines. This is more than just disappointment or surprise in finding literally nothing visibly different about this privilege spot. Once found, the anticipatory value of its discovery is lost for cook. The poll after its discovery was merely a dead world of ice that he preferred to turn his back on, and cooks account there's a difficulty of finding a common denominator in which he can negotiate the neutral and impersonal quality of his surroundings. With any personal experience of conquest, quote, the depressing monotony of seen and its lack of any spiritual pleasure only expresses for him his steady drag of chronic fatigue. Rather than offering any form of relief. further scrutiny of the horizon reflects a sense of intense loneliness. In both Perry in in both cook and Paris descriptions the process of discovery and conquest, the compass, the telescope, the flag and the camera take on a hyper real significance. The compass is the one thing that is quote, as useful as ever for cook. In his description, it becomes the only indication of life for his group who themselves are just barely alive. pulsating creatures in a dead world of ice, cooks on identification with his compass enables him to imagine a sense of euphoria, in which he imagines himself for a brief moment, outside his own experience of extreme sensory deprivation. Quote, North, East and West had vanished it was south in every direction. With the step it was possible to go from one part of the globe to the opposite side. Perry's euphoria instead is about his ability to transcend his dependence on his instruments. He uses his instruments but triumphs over them because he cannot because he can choose his experience. He uses his instruments selectively to achieve the control he wants. They can be used to, quote verify his position at the summit of the world. Yet when his instruments tell him that he is travelling north towards the pole, and then south when he passes the pole, and Perry knows that he was always traveling in the same direction. Despite what his instruments indicate. parent can claim to master two kinds of experiences, but only to a point. For Perry and cook the North Pole is perceivable only through scientific instruments, nothing can be observed. The redundancy of the eye with the signing of the poll can only be technological, not personal. Hence, in Cook's account, the phrase scientific observation means calculation the very opposite of observations, quote, on April 21, the first corrected altitude of the Sun gate 89 degrees 59 minutes 46 seconds. The poll was therefore in five. We advanced 14 seconds, make supplementary observations and prepare to stay long enough to permit a double round of observations. by personalizing the impersonal mind at last, Perry is desperately trying to hold on to you his status as hero and thus claim something he cannot see or feel. His image of his being in these exclusive regions which no mortal has ever penetrated before, seems incongruent with his actual activity of, quote, taking photographs planting the flags, studying the horizon with his telescope for possible land, and searching for a place to make a sounding No wonder, quote, his dream and goal for 20 years all seem so simple and commonplace once he reached the site itself. Cook's arrival on the spot unveils the myth that motivated his efforts. He writes, quote, after spending two days at the pole, the glamour wore away, I can get no sensation of novelty, hungry, mentally and physically exhausted a sense of the utter uselessness of this thing of the empty reward of my endurance, follow my exhilaration. During these last hours, I asked myself why this place had so, so aroused and enthusiasm, long lasting, though, through self sacrificing years. Why, for so many centuries men had fought this elusive spot, what a futile thing I fought to die for.

Unknown Speaker  16:12
Cook, realize this is his part in what he now called a quote, travesty and ironic satire, his vainglorious human aspiration and endeavor. From his earlier image of the pole which was a was which was one of splendor and plentitude his new image of it is that of a quote, bacon, silver shining gold of death. both parent and cook selfhood is threatened by the tools of science, they need science to enter into this cold and dangerous place. Yet science proves to be an ambiguous ally. Science threatens to emasculate man yet it is a useful tool to lift the veil of nature, in a different way, nature to can destroy the personalization of the subject. Cook describes himself and his companions merely as quote the only only pulsating creatures in a dead world of ice. As cook gets closer and closer he risks insanity and death. He has hallucinations, as he is caught off cut off from the comprehension of his surroundings and his own senses. Male Desire is aroused by this elusive spot that turns out to be vacant, a silver shining gold of death. Matthew Henson, the black American man who accompanies parried to the poll wrote about his experience there. Unlike Perry and Cooke, his euphoria is not in relation to the instruments as he has denied access to the tools of science. Henson does not know when he has reached the pole. He has to wait until Perry tells him the racist discourse, Perry relies on Henson's intuitive sense of gauging distances for most of the trip. Yet when they reach the pole Han Henson is reliant on pairing. The instruments take on a subject position in Henson's narrative. They are an extension of Paris. They are an extension of Paris. Henson as Paris body sermon protects the instruments as he would watch over Paris live, the instruments are given more value than Henson's live. Henson is denied sharing in Paris discovery of the poll until afterwards when there is a collective sharing around the flag raising ceremony.

Unknown Speaker  18:31
Hanson's euphoria is reserved for the celebration of American nationalism. His participation along with the Eskimos is the signal that this discovery is for the purposes of American democracy. Yet, in the celebration of democracy, there are still some absent subjects. Perry and Cook's expeditions exclude the presence of women. Parents wife, Josephine de bitch Perry, who accompanied Perry on all his other expeditions was also an explorer in her own right. She published in 1893. Her autobiography called Arctic journal a year among the ice fields and Eskimos. Although Josephine de bitch Perry was not physically present she is evoked by Perry in his autobiography. She is the same trip seamstress of the American flag that Perry plans at the fall. She is the wife and mother that Terry writes a message to when he reaches the pole. There are other absences, other missing seamstresses, Perry and Henson's Eskimo mistresses and the Eskimo women that made the clothing for the expedition are also repressed from this American celebration of democracy. While the Eskimo mistresses have disappeared from history, with the exception of the photograph of Perry's mistress in his text Northwest over the great ice, their sons have not been erased in the 1980s there is a new phase of reconstruct adoption of the North Pole myth. In 1986, a black American male scholar from Harvard, Dr. Alan counter traveled to the northwest part of Greenland to discover the male offspring of Perry and Henson. Counter intends to bring the Perry and Henson clan back to the United States I guess now we have 35 minutes for question.

Unknown Speaker  20:32
You