Jenna Sciuto (Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts)
Despite the increased prominence of the Far North in the political and environmental crises of the twenty-first century, this space remains largely absent from Global South studies, an omission that unwittingly reproduces outdated notions of the Arctic as a kind of terra nullius, a region outside both the Global North and the Global South, devoid of people and history. As the effects of climate change continue to undermine perceptions of the Arctic as a region isolated from the modern world, this panel seeks to explore the relationship between the Far North and the Global South, as depicted in popular culture. How might concepts of the Global South prove generative in relation to the histories of the Far North? Conversely, how might greater attention to the Far North introduce new challenges, questions, and insights within the field of Global South studies, further complicating binaristic formulations of space, as depicted in recent films, television series, music, or literature? From the White Walkers in the HBO series Game of Thrones to the intersplicing of northern and southern spaces in A Murder at the End of the World, how does popular culture engage with these spatial tensions in complex or even contradictory ways that might produce new insights?