Research Fridays @ Intersections of Gender - Junko Tabei, Pan Duo and Intersectional Approaches to Mountaineering
03 January 2022
Yes, we know this is not on a Friday - be kind, Dr. Rak’s schedule is packed!
This talk is based on content in Julie Rak’s recent book, False Summit: Gender in Mountaineering Nonfiction, and is about what it was like to research and write about Junko Tabei, the first female climber to summit Mount Everest, and Pan Duo, the second female climber to summit. Junko Tabei is known internationally (and has endured a lot of sexism and racism), and Pan Duo until Tabei's own intervention was not. Intersectional feminist approaches are vital for climbers and researchers as we piece together the story of female BIPoC climbers and their experiences.
Julie Rak (she/her) is Henry Marshall Tory Chair in the Department of English and Film Studies at the University of Alberta. Her latest book is False Summit: Gender in Mountaineering Nonfiction (MQUP 2021). She has written extensively on nonfiction, including the books Boom! Manufacturing Memoir for the Popular Market (2013) and Negotiated Memory: Doukhobor Autobiographical Discourse (2004). Her latest edited collection is the Identities volume of the Oxford Encyclopedia of Literary Theory (2020). With Sonia Boon, Candida Rifkind, Laurie McNeill and other clever colleagues, she is writing The Routledge Introduction to Auto/biography in Canada.