Imagining the Oceans

Catalog description

How have imaginative works shaped the human connection to the oceans in Western modernity? How have imaginative visions of the ocean been shaped by ocean practice, ranging from work and science of the sea to forced migration, the slave trade, maritime piracy and leisure pursuits? This course addresses these questions by looking at influential depictions of oceanic realms in literature and film of the 20th and 21st centuries. It also offers an introduction to key concepts in the ocean or blue humanities, a vibrant interdisciplinary field that brings humanities tools to understand humans' connection to the largest and most unknown system on the planet vital to sustaining life. Primary literature may include such works as Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea, Joseph Conrad's Lord Jim, Amitav Ghosh's Sea of Poppies, and Rivers Solomon's The Deep. Films screened may include such works as 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Jaws, Point Break, The Abyss, the surrealist films of Jean Painlevé and Man Ray, and science communication from contemporary research cruise media output.