‘The Mightiest Evangel of the Alpine Club’: Masculinity and Agnosticism in the Alpine Writing of John Tyndall

O’Gorman, Francis

doi:10.1057/9780230294165_10

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 2 publications

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“…At the same time, he notes that the British Empire was facing challenges to its authority, such as the Crimean war, the second Opium war against China, and the Indian Mutiny (Hansen 1995). Responding to these challenges, Victorian masculinity began to shift towards the cultivation of moral character through physical activity, exertion and bravery (Reidy 2015;O'Gorman 2000;Adams 2018).…”

Section: Early Mountaineering In Europe: Science and Masculinitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“It’s Beyond You, But You’re A Part of It”: Mountaineering in the Southern Alps of Aotearoa New Zealand

Scully¹

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<p>This thesis provides a phenomenological exploration of the lived experience of mountaineering in New Zealand. Based on fieldwork completed in the Southern Alps and Mount Ruapehu, it offers an analysis into how mountaineers construct the mountain environment through their climbing, while also being shaped in turn by the vital mountain. At the heart of this thesis is the movement of mountaineering. I argue that the experience of mountaineering cannot be divorced from our embodied sensory perception. Through climbing, mountaineers build a depth of embodied, living knowledge, making sense of technical information and strengthening their judgement to help them climb and manage the risks. That knowledge transforms the mountains for experienced mountaineers. Furthermore, I argue that the vibrant and potentially deadly fluxes of the mountains form their agency and thus the vitality that my participants sense. To climb in the mountains is therefore to enter into a reciprocal relationship with the vital mountain environment. The mountaineers ultimately become a reflection of the mountains in which they climb. This thesis comprises of a written thesis and immersive podcast recording, which has been attached.</p>

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Section: Early Mountaineering In Europe: Science and Masculinitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“It’s Beyond You, But You’re A Part of It”: Mountaineering in the Southern Alps of Aotearoa New Zealand

Scully¹

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In the “World of Death and Beauty”: Risk, Control, and John Tyndall as Alpinist

Eaton

2013

Victorian Literature and Culture

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THE ASSOCIATION BETWEEN MOUNTAINEERING and taking risks is conventional and has been so since mountaineering emerged in Western Europe as a distinct preoccupation during the first half of the nineteenth century. Whatever else mountaineering might be about, it has always at least been about risk. 1 Scholarship on English alpinism in its formative period -the first two decades of the second half of the nineteenth century -has long acknowledged this association. Scholarship has, however, only begun to recognize the complex nature of risk in early English alpinism. Recently, Ann C. Colley has shown that John Ruskin's exposure to danger in the Alps ("his numerous and repeated ascents . . . were often tough and sometimes dangerous" [43]), his experience of having a fragile grasp on a fragile environment and his constant exposure to views which were fleeting and fragmentary profoundly influenced his principles of artistic representation.It seems that Ruskin climbed not only for the thrill of exertion and the rage to collect his geological specimens but also for a perspective that reveals more than a panorama -that also exposes, in spite of the accompanying annoyances and frustrations, the privilege of the imperfect vision, which opens up a space for the imagination and leads one into the spiritual mystery of the landscape. (63) The present article is concerned with the mountaineering writings of Ruskin's contemporary and the leading British physicist of his day, John Tyndall. Tyndall was just eight months Ruskin's junior and they knew each other well. Vulnerability to danger was at least as important to Tyndall as Colley has shown it to be for Ruskin. Risk is a central -arguably the central -theme of Tyndall's alpine writing. But unlike Ruskin, Tyndall found it impossible to engage with danger in the high mountains and absorb the experience of that engagement into his larger project, which in Tyndall's case was scientific and cultural. Risk presented a professional, moral, and emotional challenge to Tyndall that he was utterly and explicitly unable to resolve. His work reveals the dynamic, unstable, and highly problematic nature of mid-Victorian attitudes toward danger. The most severe terrain in the high Alps -terrain which could not be traversed without taking serious risks -and the temptation to enter that terrain were Tyndall's constant and proximate fellow-travellers in the Alps. They haunted 55

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‘The Mightiest Evangel of the Alpine Club’: Masculinity and Agnosticism in the Alpine Writing of John Tyndall

Cited by 2 publications

References 2 publications

“It’s Beyond You, But You’re A Part of It”: Mountaineering in the Southern Alps of Aotearoa New Zealand

“It’s Beyond You, But You’re A Part of It”: Mountaineering in the Southern Alps of Aotearoa New Zealand

In the “World of Death and Beauty”: Risk, Control, and John Tyndall as Alpinist

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