Kim Stanley Robinson "Worst Journey in the World," INCS 2020 "GREEN" Conference USC in LA, 3/6/20
Channel: INCS 2020
Date: 2020-08-12

Robinson’s talk on Friday recounted the perilous 1911 journey of three explorers across the Antarctic regions of Ross Island, as well as his own trek in 2016 to see the sites of their struggle, their huts and artifacts. He spoke frankly, as though we were all huddled round a fire rather than seated in a conference ballroom. Photos of vast snowscapes, of frostbitten faces, his own and the explorers’, enhanced the effect. Though The Worst Journey in the World (1922), authored by Apsley Cherry-Garrard, the most junior member of the trio by more than a decade, details the absurdity and life-threatening nature of a mission to find penguin eggs, by Robinson’s reading, the journey was motivated as much by falling in love with the world as by science. If that sounds incredible when faced with temperatures far below freezing, Robinson’s own palpable enthusiasm fired up the audience. Like young Cherry-Garrard, enthralled and along for the ride, undergraduate students from the University of Southern California attended the talk, and eagerly participated in the Q&A. Robinson, a Hugo Award-winning science fiction writer, drew not only a new youth audience to INCS, but also L.A. locals and members of the USC community who bought day passes in the spirit of public humanities.