Rune Graulund

From (B)edouin to (A)borigine : the myth of the desert noble savage

This article examines the myth of the supposed superiority of the desert noble savage over civilized man. With the Bedouin of Arabia and the Aborigines of Australia as its two prime examples, the article argues that two versions of this myth can be traced: one in which the desert noble savage is valorized due to his valour, physical prowess and martial skill (Bedouin); and another, later version, where the desert noble savage is valorized as a pacifist, an ecologist and a mythmaker/storyteller (Aborigines). The article concludes by examining the way in which this turn from one type of desert noble savage to another reflects the manner in which western modernity has shifted its values from Cartesian dualities and Enlightenment rationalism to that of networks, potentialities, ecology and myth.

The Hegemony of the Copy: The Manuscript, the Book and the Electronic Text in the Age of Limitless Digital Storage

This essay questions when the creative process leading to the original can be said to be complete. When does the series of a pupil’s botched attempts at perfection leading to “the” singular and unique object, text, tool, or artwork we recognise as the original expression of the master craftsman stop? Where is the cut-off point between the different versions (copies) of earlier inferior iterations in the gestation process that lead to the original, and final, superior original? This essay chiefly examines the manner in which text has been copied and stored in one particular type of object, namely that of the book, in order to provide some fairly well-known arguments regarding pre-mechanical as well as mechanical reproduction. In particular, it examines the differences between manuscript culture and print culture as we see them expressed in the production (and reproduction) of master copies and subsequent copies, of handwritten manuscripts, and mechanically printed books. Finally, it asks what the impact of digital memory and digital copying has had in terms of our current conception of copy and original and, in particular, examines the manner in which an increase in memory storage capacity can be seen to go hand in hand with digitisation’s increased role in diluting the differences between original and copy—not only in the excessive copying of the original, but in the creative process itself. For in a world in which objects, information, and text can be copied cheaply in vast quantities, and to a degree of verisimilitude that even the creator of such may no longer know the difference, does it make sense to speak of a distinction between the two any longer? Has the copy turned original, and the original turned copy? How do we discern between the two in a world in which all “copies,” the master copy as well as copies of the master copy, are indiscernible?

Writing Travel in the Anthropocene: Disastrous Life at the End of the Arctic

Travel writers have been proclaiming the end of travel for at least a century and a half. Yet the global age of the twenty-first century presents us with a range of problems that challenge the notion of travel in ways that neither travellers nor travel writers could have imagined a century ago. Globalisation, increased mobility and rapid developments in digital media and other communication technologies have all made the previously “exotic” and “faraway” accessible to the degree that such terms have been hollowed out almost entirely. In addition, we now seem to be living in the Anthropocene: an age in which nowhere is left untouched by the activities of humankind. This article will offer a short overview of the manner in which the notion of travel has been contested by a rapid increase in the mobility of people, goods and information, concentrating on the Arctic as a case study for the impact of the Anthropocene and looking at a range of early twentieth-century Arctic travelogues and comparing them with their contemporary counterparts.