Loss and Cultural Remains in Performance: The Ghosts of the Franklin Expedition
Loss and Cultural Remains in Performance: The Ghosts of the Franklin Expedition By Heather Davis-Fisch NY: Palgrave Macmillan, $85 Reviewed by Russell A. Potter Books on various aspects of the Franklin expedition have been a staple here at the Arctic Book Review since our very first issue nearly fourteen years ago; we've reviewed biographies of Franklin, volumes of Inuit testimony , the lives of Franklin officers , those who searched for him, and of Lady Franklin , along with novels and poems inspired by these events. There's a great body of conventional historical and biographical material on the subject, enough to fill a lifetime's study -- but what has been wanting has been a book which fully examines the cultural impact and lasting significance of the narratives that have clustered around this history, its mythologies (in the full Barthean sense). Aside from Margaret Atwood's (still brilliant) lecture "Concerning Franklin and his Gallant Crew" (publi...