Hilary Mantel, A Change of Climate (Penguin, 1995)

This is the first Hilary Mantel book I have read, and I really enjoyed it.  A Change of Climate tells the story of the Eldred family, especially focused on Ralph and Anna, as they move from Norfolk to southern Africa and then back to Norfolk.  The book starts as the story of what appears to be a slightly eccentric, left-wing, and mildly religious family living a relatively normal life not far from Norwich.  As we learn more about Ralph and Anna’s experiences in Africa though, the story quickly becomes much bleaker.  The liberal religion that Ralph and Anna take with them to South Africa and Bechuanaland is shaken and broken by their horrific experiences there.  They return to Norfolk unable to forgive and intent on forgetting what happened.  But although they lie to their children and create a workable life in a rural house, Anna in particular cannot stop thinking about what happened.  Everything comes to a head one summer, and there is a real sense of family breakdown as the truth starts to emerge.  It is a very religious book, finishing with a prayer at Walsingham, but it is not an optimistic book.  The fact that it challenges what might be thought of as the uncertain certainties of an outwardly caring, engaged liberal Christianity make the critique of religion far more powerful than if it were simply an attack on an unnuanced form of fundamentalism (which to be fair is also done).  This is a really powerful book, but certainly not a comforting read.    

The recent release of the paperback edition of Frozen Empires: An Environmental History of the Antarctic Peninsula, offers an opportunity to revisit the arguments I made in this book and reflect on how it continues to shape my work in Antarctica and thinking about environmental history.  The book sets out to frame the mid-twentieth century Antarctic sovereignty dispute among Argentina, Britain, and Chile as an environmental history of decolonization.  Through a strategy I refer to as asserting ‘environmental authority’, Britain used the performance of scientific research and the production of useful knowledge to support its imperial claims to the region as a territory known as the ‘Falkland Islands Dependencies’.  Argentina and Chile both contested Britain’s claim, and put forward their own assertations to sovereignty based on a sense that this was their environment as a result of proximity, geological contiguity, and shared climate and ecosystems.  In the contest between British assertions of environmental authority and Argentine and Chilean ‘environmental nationalism’ it was the imperial, scientific vision of the environment that largely won out.  There was no genuine decolonization of the Antarctic Peninsula region, or the Antarctic continent more generally.  Instead, the 1959 Antarctic Treaty, which remains in force today, retains pre-existing sovereignty claims in a state of suspended animation (‘frozen’ in the pun of the treaty negotiators) and perpetuates the close connection between science and politics across the Antarctic Continent. 

Much of my work since researching and writing Frozen Empires has focused on the history of the McMurdo Dry Valleys on the opposite side of the Antarctic continent.  I am a co-PI on a US National Science Foundation funded Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) project, collaborating with scientists to ask how historical research might inform our understanding of this unique place.  The McMurdo Dry Valleys are the largest predominantly ice-free region of Antarctica and since the late 1950s have become an important site of Antarctic science.  Geologists are attracted to the Dry Valleys by the exposed rock, geomorphologists by the opportunity to study the glaciological history of the continent, and ecologists by the presence of microscopic ecosystems.  The close connection between politics and science that I identified in the Antarctic Peninsula is also applicable to the history of the McMurdo Dry Valleys.  The two most active countries in the region, New Zealand and the United States, can both be seen as making assertions of environmental authority to support their political position.  A major difference is that now I find myself on the inside of this system, working with scientists to help produce the ‘useful information’ that is being used for political purposes.

Working as more of an insider in a system I critiqued in Frozen Empires raises a number of awkward questions.  Can I retain a critical distance?  Am I contributing to the perpetuation of an unequal system?  What might the decolonization of Antarctic research look like?  These questions are not easy to answer.  Not infrequently I find myself looking back on the lack of inhibition I felt while researching and writing Frozen Empires and wishing for something similar in my current research.  Academic collaboration by definition leads to entanglements, and these entanglements increase complexity.  It is much easier, for example, to write critically about the imperial history of Antarctica than to convince scientific colleagues that this imperial history continues to have an impact on contemporary scientific research. 

But for all the messiness and difficulties involved in collaboration, there are also tremendous opportunities.  I have learned a lot about how science gets done through working with the McMurdo Dry Valleys LTER site, and I have learned about working as part of an academic team.  Place-based studies offers an ideal opportunity for interdisciplinary research, and I think it is vital to have humanities perspectives represented in these collaborations.  It takes time – often more time than expected – for effective collaborations to develop, and this process involves a significant degree of mutual learning.  Researching and writing Frozen Empires fundamentally shaped what I bring to the table as an environmental historian in the McMurdo Dry Valleys project, and I remain convinced by its argument for imperial continuity.  But the process of engaging in collaborative research has unsettled at least some of my earlier positions, and the book I’m writing on the history of the McMurdo Dry Valleys will likely be quite different to Frozen Empires. 

Pope Francis in conversation with Austen Ivereigh, Let us Dream: The Path to a Better Future (Simon and Schuster, 2020)

Written ‘in conversation’ with his biographer Austin Ivereigh (a writer, journalist, and Fellow in Contemporary Church History at Campion Hall, University of Oxford), this book is the Pope’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.  Its title comes from God’s words to Isaiah: ‘Come, let us talk this over.  Let us dare to dream.’  It laments the tremendous suffering caused by the coronavirus, but also sees it as an opportunity for a fundamental reset of society.  It strongly challenges efforts to ‘return to normal’ after the pandemic and sees an opportunity of creating a better world. 

The book proposes a three-fold process of responding to the pandemic – contemplate, discern, proposal –  and its structure reflects this: Part One: ‘A Time to See’; Part Two: ‘A Time to Choose’: Part Three: ‘A Time to Act’.  In Austin Ivereigh’s postscript, he suggests that this comes from the Latin American Church’s see-judge-act method.  To start with there needs to be an honest appraisal of the current situation.  Here Pope Francis suggests that the coronavirus pandemic has exposed major inequalities and injustices in society.  Secondly, the book proposes a a synodal approach to discernment, based on the great syn-odos ‘walking together’.  An example of this comes from his recent special synod on Amazonia.  In the final section, A Time to Act, the Pope starts to put toward some concrete actions that might start to make the world a better place, more in line with what God intended us to be. 

There are some things I disagree with in the book.  As would be expected, the discussion of abortion is presented in binary terms with very little space for the synodal approach outlined in the overall process that is put forward.  The gendered praising of ‘feminine’ characteristics based on the Spanish/Argentine concept of Ama de Casa seems to me to be highly problematic, and a reflection of the knots that a church with an all-male clergy can tie itself in.  But these disagreements are to be expected, and are actually a healthy expression of the process for ‘dreaming’ set out by this book.  Walking together does not imply everyone thinks the same way, or that people who think differently should be excluded from the conversation.  Rather, it calls for a profounds appreciation for difference, and a willingness to learn. 

In relation to Land, the Pope reinforces the social dimensions of environmentalism, enshrined in Laudato Si and writes (with some potentially problematic gendered language):

We are earthly beings, who belong to Mother Earth, and we cannot simply live at her expsense; our relationship with her is reciprocal.  We need now a Jubilee, a time when those who have more than enough should consume less to allow the earth to heal, and a time for the excluded to find their place in our socieites.  The pandemic and the economic crisis offer a change to examine our lifestyles, to change destructive habits, and to find more sustainable ways to produce, trade, and transport goods. 

He as has some interesting things to say about labour: 

…Work is the capacity that the Lord gifted us with lets us contribute to His creative action.  In working, we shape creation.

            That is why, as a society, we have to ensure that labor [sic] be a means not just of earning money but of self-expression, of taking part in society, and of contributing to the common good.  Prioritizing access to work must become a core goal of national public policies (130 of 149 ebook). 

This is a really powerful book, and one that connects strongly to much of my thinking about religion, environment, and history.    

John Peck and Martin Coyle, A Brief History of English Literature Second Edition (Palgrave MacMillan, 2013)

Reading more about English history and the history of English theatre over the Christmas break got me thinking about the history of English literature.  John Peck and Martin Coyle’s A Brief History of English Literature does exactly what it suggests, and in 300 pages tells the story of English literature from Beowulf to Jonathan Lewis’s play Our Boys (not quite such a neat ending as the first edition, which finished with Seamus Heaney’s translation of Beowulf).  Much like the histories of theatre I’ve been reading, the central argument is that literature both shapes and is shaped by the broader history of England.  Despite the model provided by Chaucer in the late fourteenth century, for example, very little of note was published in the fifteenth century, during the chaos of the end of the One Hundred Years War and the Wars of the Roses. 

I very much enjoyed this book, and if not quite able to finish in a single sitting (one of the stated goals of the volume) I wasn’t far away.  The writing is lively, and there’s just the right level of details for an introductory volume.  The introduction discusses some of the challenges of writing a brief history of English literature, and it acknowledges the problem that most of the books included are from the traditional canon, while trying to discuss more contemporary approaches.  Its lack of any real focus of black and ethnic minority authors seems quite dated, despite the book being only seven or eight years old.  This is not a criticism of the authors, but more an observation about the pace at which we’ve started to discuss themes like ‘decolonizing the curriculum’.  Another challenge acknowledged by the introduction is that any historical narrative imposes a false sense of order onto the subject matter.  A big theme throughout the book is that literature is often a response to times of change and disruption, with some writers embracing this change and others reacting against it.  From the second world war onwards, the authors suggest that there is a fragmentation in English literature that means that its much more difficult, if not impossible, to identify trends.  The additional chapter written for the second edition on the most recent English literature, suggests that most of the real innovation now seems to be happening in US literature, although it offers a defence of English creativity. 

I did some reading yesterday afternoon about the prophets of the Hebrew Bible.  This topic comes in the section of our Human Identity module on vocation, with the link being a sense of calling and purpose.  The most interesting reading was from John Goldingay’s book Israel’s Life (2009).  He starts his section on ‘Prophets, Central and Marginal’ with the statement that ‘defining prophets is problematic’, and there are a number of ways for thinking about prophecy.  There is a sense of social criticism, and a sense of looking forwards into the future.  Goldingay suggests that ‘a Wittgenstinian set of “family resemblances” offers a more plausible approach.  There is a focus on Amos, Isiah, Jeremiah, and Ezeziel, and he writes that ‘all four… declare what Whwh is going to do in the future, none are reformers; are individuals working on their own if they can help it.  He goes on to explore Biblical prophecy under a number of headings: Voice of Tradition, A Specific Divine Initiative, An Invariable Divine Initiative, Guides Keeping Israel on the Right Road, Lookouts with Eyes Open, Passing the Moral Test, A Word from Outside the Self?, Avoiding False Promises, Beware the False Prophets. 

A second section on prophecy examines ‘True Prophets’.  ‘Kingship’, he writes, ‘is a human initiative of which Yhwh can wrest control.  Prohecy is more like a divine iniative of which humanity can wrest control.  When Yhwh is in control of prophecy, what does it look like?’ 

Prophecy is a really interesting theme, and one I need to return to.  To really do justice to this topic, it will be necessary to revisit Biblical history, and put each prophet (or prophet) into their specific context. 

I spent some time over the Christmas break reading about the medieval history of England, mostly in Simon Jenkins’ A Short History of England (2011).  The blurb on the back from the Spectator says ‘This is a traditional, kings-and-things history with all its dates and famous quotations in place…’, and that very nicely sums up the book.  Although I’ve read several accounts of medieval English history, this is not a period I’ve ever studied academically, and it remains a bit of a blur.  I understand the broad outlines: essentially a 400+ year period of occupation by a French speaking royalty and nobility giving way to a very gradual ‘Anglicisation’ of the ruling class, especially as a result of increased conflict with France in the C.14 and C.15 centuries during the Hundred Year War.

The Jenkins book helps to fill in many of the details of this history, and without the details it doesn’t really make sense.  There are lots of obvious comparisons with histories of kingship in the Hebrew Bible (e.g. the books of Samuel), and the history of the nation seems to be shaped to a significant degree by the circumstances and character of the monarch.  This is very different to the C.20 history that I’ve focused on, where the history of the royal family barely enters into the story.  There would be an interesting ‘great man’ themed exam question that asks when things changed.  I might answer that by saying that things started to change when we got more sources from ‘the masses’ and began to pay attention to wider historical trends.  In other words, history itself changes when we move beyond a ‘kings-and-things’ approach.  That said, there is real value in understanding the ‘top down’ history of medieval England, and I wouldn’t suggest that it’s entirely unfair to say that individuals enjoyed a greater influence over national history during this period than subsequently.  The Jenkins book is short and well worth reading. 

We had our first Hazelnut City Farm meeting of 2021 yesterday afternoon.  It was a good opportunity to see people and pray together for the year ahead.  I’m really excited about the possibilities of Hazelnut, and developing Church focused farms in Bristol and beyond.  There is something truly sacramental about working together on the land, mixing our labour with God’s creation.  In the autumn being together outside was so much more of a positive experience that being socially distanced in a church building.  But even more important that the current situation, church farms offer opportunities to engage society in a new way that puts community and the environment at the centre.  Imagine if every church was also a farm.  What would that do for perceptions of Christianity?  I think it would help to bring more and more people into a relationship with God, at the same time as being integral to doing something about the environment crisis.  This is something I hope to think more about and reflect on in the year ahead. 

We did the Dundry and Maes Knoll walk yesterday from Robin Tetlow’s Beyond Bristol: 24 Country Walks.  The walk is just to the south of Bristol, and there are great views over the city to the north and southwards over Chew Valley.  The weather was good to start with, but by the end of the walk it was starting to snow.  A highlight of the walk is Maes Knoll, an iron age hill fort dating to about 250 BCE.  The tower of St Michael the Archangel church in Dundry was built in 1484 by the Society of Merchant Venturers as a landmark visible from the Avon. 

What does it mean to be the national church of England at a time of rising English nationalism?  Whatever we might think of Brexit, it has now taken place and it creates a new set of conditions for Christianity in England and the United Kingdom more broadly.  These new conditions raise a fundamental question: is Brexit Britain going to be a Christian country?  There is a real opportunity for the Church to influence society for the better, but there is also a possibility of being seen as increasingly irrelevant.  There was an editorial in The Guardian this morning citing a new book by Pope Francis, Let Us Dream and asking whether this is the moment for liberal Christianity to flourish.  I worry that within the Church Brexit and the new situation it creates isn’t really being talked about, and as a consequence we’re not doing as much as we might to adapt and to seek to influence the country for the better.  There are a number of possible reasons why the Church is reluctant to talk about Brexit, which I may explore in a future blog post.  But as the country continues to ask what sort of society we want to live in, it seems to me to be important that the Church contributes to this conversation. 

We did the Saltford, Kelston and Newbridge walk yesterday from Robin Tetlow’s Beyond Bristol: 24 Country Walks (2017) book.  The walk starts in Saltford on the way to Bath, and there are fantastic views of both Bristol and Bath from the hills Kelston.  Kelston is the location of the Bath Soft Cheese Company, and both times we’ve done this walk there have been lots of people buying cheeses and coffees at the shop.  Building on St Martin’s Church in North Stoke started in the twelfth century, and it looks noticeably older (and smaller) than many of the other Churches you see in Somerset. Newbridge is a suburb of Bath.  On the way back to Saltford the walk picks up the River Avon Trail, and the Bristol and Bath Railway Path.