Abstract

The narrative of Scott’s Terra Nova Expedition has been repeatedly reworked and mythologised throughout the past century into several starkly different forms. From the ‘tragic heroism’ of the long 19th Century to the cynical revisionism of the 1980s, the story has been shaped to fit into a variety of archetypes. However, these reductions of a multifaceted story into a simple, single-focus narrative often misses the granular emotional experience of the individuals directly involved with this expedition, through which the course of events is best understood. The expedition is, fundamentally, its people. This talk will untangle the layers of culturally-informed legacy building to reveal the nuanced human beings whose personalities, histories, and psychology influenced both the expedition’s events and outcomes, and the publications that committed them to historical record. The zoom link will be sent closer via email closer to the date.