Hollow Earth
: myth, fantasy and ethics

  • Meg Narramore

Student thesis: Master's ThesisMaster of Science by Research (MScR)

Abstract

This thesis focuses on extraction from deep spaces, placing such extraction within the broader context of human relationships with and understanding of the subterranean. Out-of-sight spaces are some of the most militarised in the world, and their ownership plays a large part in political power struggles across the globe. Insertion, extraction, and militarisation are intrinsically linked, and it is only by understanding the conveyer belt of in-vs-out that it is possible to understand the scale of exploitation of the underland and its policies. This thesis approaches such matters through a particular focus on Hollow Earth Theory: a theory with a long history, and one which has, I demonstrate, involved mythical and religious interpretations of the deep developing into early scientific hypotheses. The theory began to attract the attention of the scientific world when Athanasius Kircher depicted a series of internal fires and vents in his Mundus Subterraneous (1665), and continued to endure in new and improved iterations, primarily due to the work of Edmond Halley and John Cleve Symmes; for two centuries it existed as scientific principle, and it then went on to become a popular trope of science fiction narratives, both literary and on film. In offering a history and discussion of Hollow Earth Theory, then, this thesis moves across the fields of science, myth, religion and literature, and it comes to argue that attention to literature, specifically, can help us think through how our attitudes towards the deep are culturally framed.
Date of Award12 May 2022
Original languageEnglish
Awarding Institution
  • University of Bristol
SupervisorKate Hendry (Supervisor) & Laurence J W Publicover (Supervisor)

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