Stephanie Krzywonos on Re-imagining Antarctica

Emergence Magazine is an online publication with annual print edition exploring the threads connecting ecology, culture, and spirituality. As we experience the desecration of our lands and waters, the extinguishing of species, and a loss of sacred connection to the Earth, we look to emerging stories. Our podcast features exclusive interviews, narrated essays, stories and more.

Visiting the Ross Ice Shelf across several seasons, Stephanie Kryzwonos interrogates the heroic narratives of male exploration and conquest—written almost entirely by white men—that gender the land through feminine tropes. Might these characterizations, borne of a colonizing hunger to conquer and subdue, say more about the culture they come from than about the land they describe? What would happen, Stephanie asks, if we moved beyond fantasies and savior complexes, and instead approached Antarctica as a living place with agency?

Read this story.

Explore more stories from Shifting Landscapes, our fourth print volume.

________________________________

Listen to the rest of this story on Emergence Magazine’s website or by subscribing to the podcast.

Stephanie Krzywonos is a Xicana nonfiction writer. Her forthcoming debut book is Ice Folx, an intersectional memoir set in the Antarctic underworld. She has written about her experiences on “the Ice” for Sierra Magazine, Ofrenda Magazine, The Willowherb Review, Kosmos Journal, The Dark Mountain Project, The Behemoth, and The Antarctic Sun.