Location(s)

Accompanying a groundbreaking installation called The Polar Spirit - curated by Gary Kolb and Jay Needham of Southern Illinois University Carbondale - this project seeks to bring in experts who will provide a humanistic lens to the study of the human experience and spirit in relation to explorations of Antarctica, past and present. Key programs will include the authors Lucy Jane Bledsoe (author of The Ice Cave: A Woman's Adventures from the Mojave to the Antarctic), Eric Wilson (author of The Spiritual History of Ice: Romanticism, Science, and the Imagination), and David Stam, co-editor of (British and American Literature of Polar Exploration). Programs organized with these speakers will take place throughout the southern Illinois region, including Carbondale, Marion, and Mt. Vernon.