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21A.525 | Fall 2025 | Undergraduate

# Oceans and Us

#### Course Description

This course explores how people have understood and encountered the ocean, cross-culturally, as a site of danger, pleasure, travel, food-procurement, commerce, and tourism. Topics include imperial voyaging, piracy, the invention of seaside vacations, the politics of fishing, the culture of onboard living in surface and …
This course explores how people have understood and encountered the ocean, cross-culturally, as a site of danger, pleasure, travel, food-procurement, commerce, and tourism. Topics include imperial voyaging, piracy, the invention of seaside vacations, the politics of fishing, the culture of onboard living in surface and submarine ships, the rise of undersea entertainment and documentary, regimes of managing maritime spaces and species, and the emergence of the ocean as an object of global ecological concern, particularly around climate change and sea level rise.

## Course Info

### Instructor

- Prof. Stefan Helmreich

### Departments

- Anthropology

### Topics

- Science
  - Earth Science
    - Climate Studies
    - Environmental Science
    - Oceanography
- Social Science
  - Anthropology
    - Cultural Anthropology
    - Social Anthropology

### Learning Resource Types

auto_stories Readings
assignment Written Assignments
A young visitor walks along the ocean at sunrise. (Image courtesy of Linda Rain 714 on Flickr. License: CC BY. )

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