The History of Literature 783 Southern Imagining (with Elleke Boehmer) | My Last Book with John McMurtrie
Mar 12, 2026
A wide-ranging look at how the Global North shapes perceptions of the far Southern Hemisphere and why that matters for culture and identity. Conversations cover southern myths, oceanic perspectives, and the historical sweep from Indigenous stories to modern literature. A playful detour asks what book someone would choose as their last read.
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How Northern Institutions Frame The South As Peripheral
- Northern perspectives are institutionally embedded via universities, science, libraries and media that treat the South as peripheral or a place 'where nothing happens'.
- Boehmer links this to historical cartographic and literary tropes (edge of world, journeys to the ends of the earth) that persist into modern coverage and memory.
Host's Small Town Memory Of Reading Big City Books
- Jacke Wilson shares his Wisconsin childhood memory of reading New York–set books and feeling a transposed life layered over his own small-town experience.
- He compares that to Southern Hemisphere readers who consume constant Northern perspectives and know those settings aren't their daily reality.
The South Feels Distant Even After Global Shrinking
- Perceptions of distance have shifted with telegraph, air travel, and the internet, yet the feeling of being 'very far away' persists because economic and scientific power clusters across Eurasia and North America.
- Boehmer notes south–south air routes once existed but many have disappeared, reinforcing isolation even in a 'shrinking' world.
