Loss and Cultural Remains in Performance The Ghosts of the Franklin Expedition [Paperback]

In 1845, John Franklin's Northwest Passage expedition disappeared. The expedition left an archive of performative remains that entice one to consider the tension between material remains and memory and reflect on how substitution and surrogation work alongside mourning and melancholia as responses to loss.Introduction: Jane Franklin's Dress: Archives and Affect  Disciplining Nostalgia in the Navy; or, Harlequin in the Arctic   'The Sly Fox': Reading Indigenous Presence   Going Native: 'Playing Inuit,' 'Becoming Savage,' and Acting Out Franklin  Aglooka's Ghost: Performing Embodied Memory  The Last Resource: Witnessing the Cannibal Scene   The Designated Mourner: Charles Dickens Stands in for Franklin   Conclusion: Franklin Remains 

Davis-Fisch's book is . . . the most original and engaging work on the cultural impact of the mid-century Franklin fascination yet to appear - and, it's to be hoped, a harbinger of further such studies of the larger dramas of exploration as such, in all the regions of the world that the 'West' thought of as distant. - The Arctic Book Review

The argument of Heather Davis-Fisch's book - that we might trace the 'remains' of a cultural event through performance in order both to evoke its circumstances and to argue for a relationship between performance and history, as well as performance and 'loss' more generally - is important, compelling, and interesting. Davis-Fisch makes her points clearly and delivers interesting close readings informed by recent criticism and theory. - Jennifer Hill, Fitzgerald Distinguished Professor of the Humanities , University of Nevada, Reno

Heather Davis-Fisch is an instructor in English and Theatre at the University of Fraser Valley, Canada