Table of Contents

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgments

Introduction: The Stubborn Particularities of Voice

Part 1: Matters of Locality

1 Memories of the Little Ice Age

2 Constructing Life Stories: Glaciers as Social Spaces

3 Listening for Different Stories

Part 2: Practices of Exploration

4 Two Centuries of Stories from Lituya Bay: Nature, Culture, and La Pérouse

5 Bringing Icy Regions Home: John Muir in Alaska

6 Edward James Glave, the Alsek, and the Congo

Part 3: Scientific Research in Sentient Places

7 Mapping Boundaries: From Stories to Borders

8 Melting Glaciers and Emerging Histories

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Promotional Information

Do Glaciers Listen? is an exploration of nature and culture in encounter that builds upon Julie Cruikshank's deep and unrivalled knowledge of indigenous tradition. It focuses on an area that is, by most people's reckoning, 'off the beaten track' and probably thus, by extension, unpropitious space for such an inquiry. But this is its triumph. It brings liminal space to the very centre of several important concerns of contemporary scholarship. -- Graeme Wynn, Department of Geography, University of British Columbia

About the Author

Julie Cruikshank is professor emerita in the Department of Anthropology and Sociology at the University of British Columbia. She is the author of Life Lived Like a Story (winner of the 1992 MacDonald Prize); Reading Voices; and The Social Life of Stories. In 2012 she was awarded a Clio Lifetime Achievement Award for The North by the Canadian Historical Association

Reviews

Perhaps the crucial word in the title is “Listen.” The reader must listen carefully to the words as spoken by others in this beautifully crafted book. Do Glaciers Listen? is a fascinating read. Cruikshank’s discussion of how encounters shape and create perceptions of the world, and how layers of meaning are forced onto landscapes by peoples is thoroughly thought provoking. This book is highly recommended for scientitst, anthropologists, historians, and everyone with an interest in the social construction of landscapes.
*Meridian, Fall/Winter 2005*

Cruikshank’s book is sophisticated, rigorous, and exciting. Its pages brim with nuanced takes on epistemology, sensitive descriptions of ice, and rigorous analyses of cultural interactions. This is indeed a tour de force in interdisciplinary studies.
*American Historical Review*