The Pacific Ocean

Catalog description

In Fall 2026, acclaimed artist Patty Chang will open an exhibition at the Anderson Collection. Among other things, this exhibition will engage the history of Stanford's Hopkins Marine Station, located on the edge of Monterey Bay, which was until 1906 the site of the Point Alones Chinese Fishing Village. Taking Chang's exhibition as a starting point, this graduate seminar will explore the Pacific Ocean as a site, an environment, and an ancestor. Topics of study will include ocean and land art; ocean poetics; feminist and Marxist approaches to scientific labor; sea creatures; and transpacific methodologies. The course will include a mandatory day-long field trip to Hopkins Marine Station. This course is only open to graduate students.