Integrative Ocean Study

Catalog description

In our era of anthropogenic climate change, the need for more effective methods for understanding the interaction and impact of humans with/on the oceans has never been more urgent. This innovative new course introduces students to the forefront of interdisciplinary work on ocean systems involving the humanities/science integration. This integration is the least explored among all the areas of interdisciplinary study of the oceans, which has much more prominently featured social science/policy/science issues. Our course will introduce methods for pursuing this timely integration under the guidance of Oceans Department Chair Fiorenza Micheli and English Department Professor Margaret Cohen. In the first 5 weeks of the course we will look at selections from influential case studies in such integration around shared archives of interest. Our examples include writer John Steinbeck and marine scientist Ed Rickett's co-authored Sea of Cortez: A Leisurely Journal of Travel and Research (1941), Stephen Palumbi and Carolybn Sotka's Death and Life of Monterey Bay and ongoing collaborations at Stanford. Students taking the course for 3 credits will attend one day of a workshop on Feb. 7, 2025 bringing leading figures in ocean humanities and ocean sciences to discuss paths forward. In Weeks 7-10, students will work in teams, ideally built of collaborators with differing types of area expertise, identifying a question of interest both to humanities and science researchers and exploring paths forward. This course must be taken for a minimum of 3 units and a letter grade to be eligible for Ways credit.