May 3, 2024

By Serpil Oppermann. Cambridge University Press, 2023.

By drawing on oceanography (marine sciences) and limnology (freshwater sciences), social sciences, and the environmental humanities, the field of the blue humanities critically examines the planet’s troubled seas and distressed freshwaters from socio-cultural, literary, historical, aesthetic, ethical, and theoretical perspectives. Since all waterscapes in the Anthropocene are overexploited and endangered sites, the field calls for transdisciplinary cooperation and encourages thinking together beyond the conventions of tentacular anthropocentric thought. Working across many disciplines, the blue humanities, then, challenges ...

By Steve Mentz. Fordham University Press, 2024.

Journey through uncharted literary waters and explore Melville’s epic in bold new light

Come sail with I.

We’re not taking the same trip, though you might recognize the familiar course. This time, the Pequod’s American voyage steers its course across the curvature of the Word Ocean without anyone at the helm. We are leaving one man and his madness on shore. Our ship overflows with glorious plurality—multiracial, visionary, queer, conflicted, polyphonic, playful, violent. But on this voyage something is different. Today ...