Less tangible than melting polar glaciers or the changing social conditions in northern societies, the modern Arctic represented in writings, visual images and films has to a large extent been neglected in scholarship and policy-making. However, the modern Arctic is a not only a natural environment dramatically impacted by human activities. It is also an incongruous amalgamation of exoticized indigenous tradition and a mundane everyday. The chapters in this volume examine the modern Arctic from all these perspectives. They demonstrate to what extent the processes of modernization have changed the discursive signification of the Arctic. They also investigate the extent to which the traditions of heroic Arctic images – whether these traditions are affirmed, contested or repudiated – have continued to shape, influence and inform modern discourses. Sometimes the Arctic is seen as synonymous with modernity itself. Sometimes it appears as a utopian space signalling a different future. However, it still often represents the continued survival within modernity of the past as nostalgia, longing, dream and myth.

This coloring book features 22 pictures by 10 different Inuit artists from Cape Dorset. Color reproductions of the original art lines the insides of the front and back covers.

This book includes various responses to the geopolitical conditions of our tangent times through collections of visual materials and theoretical explorations with critical positionings. The book expands on the Anthropocene theory by exploring its relations with the aesthetic concerns in contemporary representations through their geopolitical ramifications. We conceptualize postcards as documentary space-time snapshots, which convey complex assemblages of dynamic, non-linear, unpredictable, ad-hoc networks between interdependent and transcalar actors in deep time. The postcards we assemble raise questions about the ethical and political challenges of the dominant modes of technoscientific knowledge production, modes that are constituted through existing power relationships, subject positions, and differences, and that perpetuate current inequalities. They catalyse speculative and creative geopolitical imaginaries and collective subjectivities that recalibrate existing value systems and indicate alternatives.

The Arctic is thawing. In summer, cruise ships sail through the once ice-clogged Northwest Passage, lakes form on top of the Greenland Ice Sheet, and polar bears swim farther and farther in search of waning ice floes. At the opposite end of the world, floating Antarctic ice shelves are shrinking. Mountain glaciers are in retreat worldwide, unleashing flash floods and avalanches. We are on thin ice—and with melting permafrost’s potential to let loose still more greenhouse gases, these changes may be just the beginning. Vanishing Ice is a powerful depiction of the dramatic transformation of the cryosphere—the world of ice and snow—and its consequences for the human world. Delving into the major components of the cryosphere, including ice sheets, valley glaciers, permafrost, and floating ice, Vivien Gornitz gives an up-to-date explanation of key current trends in the decline of ice mass. Drawing on a long-term perspective gained by examining changes in the cryosphere and corresponding variations in sea level over millions of years, she demonstrates the link between thawing ice and sea-level rise to point to the social and economic challenges on the horizon. Gornitz highlights the widespread repercussions of ice loss, which will affect countless people far removed from frozen regions, to explain why the big meltdown matters to us all. Written for all readers and students interested in the science of our changing climate, Vanishing Ice is an accessible and lucid warning of the coming thaw.

A unique collection of images created by illustrators from 28 countries on the theme of human migration Based on the exhibition of postcards at the Biennial of Illustration, Bratislava, in 2017, curated by the International Centre for the Picture Book in Society. Over 50 illustrators from around the world have created postcards depicting birds, with images that send a powerful message about human migration, showing that cultures, ideas and imagination will always flow despite borders, barriers and bans.The book is divided into themes of Departures, Long Journeys, Arrivals and Hope for the Future. The facsimile postcard text includes personal messages of hope from the illustrators, as well as quotes from writers including Maya Angelou, WB Yeats, John Clare, Anita Desai and Robert Macfarlane.Illustrators include Christopher Corr, Marie-Louise Gay, Piet Grobler, Petr Horacek, Isol, Jon Klassen, Neal Layton, PJ Lynch, Roger Mello, Jackie Morris, Jane Ray, Axel Scheffler and Shaun Tan.With an introduction by Shaun Tan.

Who is Matthijs van Guilder? Walt, the sheriff, thinks he is a devil. Margaret, Walts wife, thinks he is an angel. Bryan, Walts son, thinks he is a hero. Janice thinks hes the best thing thats ever happened to her. Nigel, who has known him for a long time, thinks he is an arrogant, quirky, cold-blooded assassin and one of his best employees. Mat sees himself as alternately angry, funny, deadly, damaged, clever, well read, a film buff, successful and homeless. Can they all be right? Is this ghost real? This is a story of identity; of the unlikely romance between two middle-aged misfits, along with some dog behavior, paganism and a good chase, all intrinsic to the tale. It is a story about what is said and what is not said; a story of fate, fact and fiction all tangled up. It is a story that intruded itself, pre-formed, intact, to a reluctant consciousness and insisted on being written downfor better or worse.