Oceans and Us

Readings

Session 1: Introductions

• No readings assigned

Session 2: What Is the Ocean? Imagining and Encountering Ocean Animals

• Hamblyn, Richard. 2021. “Introduction: ‘The Sea Is Like Music.’” In The Sea: Nature and Culture. Reaktion Books, pp. 7–18. ISBN: ‎9781789144871. [Preview with Google Books]
• Walcott, Derek. 1978. “The Sea Is History,” Paris Review 74.
• Muka, Samantha. 2023. “Aquarium Craft: Replicating Oceans Under Glass.” Chapter 1 in Oceans Under Glass: Tank Craft and the Sciences of the Sea. University of Chicago Press, pp. 11–38. ISBN: ‎9780226824130. [Preview with Google Books]
• Desmond, Jane. 1999. “The Industries of Species Tourism.” Chapter 7 in Staging Tourism: Bodies on Display from Waikiki to Sea World. University of Chicago Press, pp. 153–75. ISBN: ‎9780226143750.

Session 3: Seaside Leisure

• Corbin, Alain. 1994. “Part II: The Pattern of a New Pleasure.” In The Lure of the Sea: The Discovery of the Seaside in the Western World 1750–1840. Translated from the French by Jocelyn Phelps. University of California Press, pp. 57–96. ISBN: ‎9780520066380. [Preview with Google Books]
• Comer, Krista. 2001. “Surfer Girls.” In Girlhood in America. Edited by Miriam Forman-Brunell. ABC-Clio, pp. 627–31. ISBN: ‎9781576072066.
• Gregory, Alice. 2013. “Mavericks,” n+1 17.
• Riley, Joe. 2018. “The Enigma of:,” unbag.

Session 4: Oceanic Economies

• Steinberg, Philip. 2001. “Introduction: From Davy Jones’ Locker to the Foot Locker: The Case of the Floating Nikes.” In The Social Construction of the Ocean. Cambridge University Press. ISBN: 9780521804431.
• ———. “Territorial Political Economy and the Construction of Ocean-Space.” Chapter 1 in The Social Construction of the Ocean. Cambridge University Press. ISBN: 9780521804431. [Preview with Google Books]
• ———. “Ocean-Space and Merchant Capitalism.” Chapter 3 in The Social Construction of the Ocean. Cambridge University Press, pp. 89–109. ISBN: 9780521804431. 
• ———. “Ocean-Space and Industrial Capitalism.” Chapter 4 in The Social Construction of the Ocean. Cambridge University Press, pp. 110–38. ISBN: 9780521804431.

Session 5: The Microbial Ocean

• Helmreich, Stefan. 2009. “Introduction: Life at Sea.” In Alien Ocean: Anthropological Voyages in Microbial Seas. University of California Press. ISBN: ‎9780520250628. [Preview with Google Books]
• ———. “Dissolving the Tree of Life: Alien Kinship at Hydrothermal Vents.” Chapter 2 in Alien Ocean: Anthropological Voyages in Microbial Seas. University of California Press. ISBN: ‎9780520250628. 
• ———. “Blue-Green Capitalism: Marine Biotechnology in Hawai‘i.” Chapter 3 in Alien Ocean: Anthropological Voyages in Microbial Seas. University of California Press. ISBN: ‎9780520250628. 
• Zhong, Raymond. 2025. “The Very Hungry Microbes That Could, Just Maybe, Cool the Planet," New York Times, October 6, 2025.

Session 6: The Black Atlantic

• Smallwood, Stephanie. 2007. “Introduction.” In Saltwater Slavery: A Middle Passage from Africa to American Diaspora. Harvard University Press. ISBN: ‎9780674023499. [Preview with Google Books]
• ———. “Turning African Captives into Atlantic Commodities.” Chapter 2 in Saltwater Slavery: A Middle Passage from Africa to American Diaspora. Harvard University Press, pp. 52–64. ISBN: ‎9780674023499. 
• ———. “The Political Economy of the Slave Ship.” Chapter 3 in Saltwater Slavery: A Middle Passage from Africa to American Diaspora. Harvard University Press, pp. 65. ISBN: ‎9780674023499. 
• ———. “The Living Dead Aboard the Slave Ship at Sea.” Chapter 5 in Saltwater Slavery: A Middle Passage from Africa to American Diaspora. Harvard University Press. ISBN: ‎9780674023499. 
• ———. “Life and Death in Diaspora.” Chapter 7 in Saltwater Slavery: A Middle Passage from Africa to American Diaspora. Harvard University Press, pp. 182–86. ISBN: ‎9780674023499. 
• Dawson, Kevin. 2018. “Atlantic African Aquatic Cultures: A Cross-Cultural Comparison.” Chapter 1 in Undercurrents of Power: Aquatic Culture in the African Diaspora. University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN: ‎9780812249897. [Preview with Google Books]
• Gumbs, Alexis Pauline. 2020. “Introduction.” In Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals. AK Press. ISBN: ‎9781849353977. [Preview with Google Books]
• Rediker, Marcus. 2025. “A Horrific Tale of the Slave Trade, Destined to Become a Classic," New York Times, October 16, 2025.

Session 7: Pirates and Other Offshore Agents

• Rediker, Marcus. 1987. “The Seaman as Pirate: Plunder and Social Banditry at Sea.” Chapter 6 in Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea. Cambridge University Press. ISBN: ‎9780521303422. 
• Nordstrom, Carolyn. 2007. “Ports.” Chapter 12 in Global Outlaws: Crime, Money, and Power in the Contemporary World. University of California Press. ISBN: ‎9780520250963. 
• ———. “The World-Port.” Chapter 16 in Global Outlaws: Crime, Money, and Power in the Contemporary World. University of California Press. ISBN: ‎9780520250963. 
• ———. “The Investment Machine.” Chapter 17 in Global Outlaws: Crime, Money, and Power in the Contemporary World. University of California Press. ISBN: ‎9780520250963. 
• Dua, Jatin. 2013. “A Sea of Trade and a Sea of Fish: Piracy and Protection in the Western Indian Ocean.” Journal of East African Studies 7, no. 2: 353–70.

Session 8: Fishing, Overfishing, and Property

• Bestor, Theodore C. 2009. “How Sushi Went Global.” Foreign Policy, November/December pp. 54–63.
• Telesca, Jennifer. 2020. “Prologue: The Life and Death of Bluefin Tuna.” In Red Gold: The Managed Extinction of the Giant Bluefin Tuna. University of Minnesota Press. ISBN: ‎9781517908508. [Preview with Google Books]
• ———. “Introduction: The Very Elder Gods Become Red Gold.” In Red Gold: The Managed Extinction of the Giant Bluefin Tuna. University of Minnesota Press. ISBN: ‎9781517908508. 
• ———. “A History of the Bluefin Tuna Trade.” Chapter 1 in Red Gold: The Managed Extinction of the Giant Bluefin Tuna. University of Minnesota Press. ISBN: ‎9781517908508. 

Session 9: Reimagining the Pacific

View:

• “How Did Polynesian Wayfinders Navigate the Pacific Ocean? - Alan Tamayose and Shantell De Silva.” YouTube.

Read:

• Hau‘ofa, Epeli. 1994. “Our Sea of Islands.” Contemporary Pacific 6, no. 1: 148–61.
• Ingersoll, Karin Amimoto. 2016. Excerpt from Waves of Knowing: A Seascape Epistemology. Duke University Press. ISBN: ‎9780822362128. [Preview with Google Books]
• Kirsch, Stuart. 2020. “Why Pacific Islanders Stopped Worrying About the Apocalypse and Started Fighting Climate Change.” American Anthropologist 122, no. 4: 827–39.
• Helmreich, Stefan. 2023. “Set One, Third Wave: Wave Navigation, Sea of Islands.” In A Book of Waves. Duke University Press. ISBN: ‎9781478019947. [Preview with Google Books]

Skim:

• Eckstein, Lars, and Anja Schwarz. 2019. “The Making of Tupaia’s Map: A Story of the Extent and Mastery of Polynesian Navigation, Competing Systems of Wayfinding on James Cook’s Endeavour, and the Invention of an Ingenious Cartographic System.” Journal of Pacific History 54, no. 1: 1–95.

Session 10: Mediated Ocean

• Jue, Melody. 2020. Excerpt from Wild Blue Media: Thinking Through Seawater. Duke University Press. ISBN: ‎9781478006121. [Preview with Google Books]
• Heller, Charles, and Lorenzo Pezzani. 2012. “The Left-to-Die Boat: The Deadly Drift of a Migrants’ Boat in the Central Mediterranean.” Forensic Architecture, Goldsmiths, University of London.
• Cohen, Margaret. 2022. Excerpts from The Underwater Eye: How the Movie Camera Opened the
  Depths and Unleashed New Realms of Fantasy. Princeton University Press. ISBN: ‎9780691197975. [Preview with Google Books]
• Helmreich, Stefan. 2018. “Massive Movie Waves and the Anthropic Ocean.” Social Science Information 57, no. 3: 494–521.
• ———. 2011. “Underwater Music: Tuning Composition to the Sounds of Silence.” Chapter 6 in The Oxford Handbook of Sound Studies. Edited by Trevor Pinch and ‎Karin Bijsterveld. Oxford University Press. ISBN: ‎9780195388947. 
• ———. 2015. ”Hokusai’s Great Wave Enters the Anthropocene.” Environmental Humanities 7: 203–17.

Session 11: Sea Level Rise

• Ley, Lukas. 2021. “Introduction: Tidal Flooding and Chronic Infrastructural Breakdown.” In Building on Borrowed Time: Rising Seas and Failing Infrastructure in Semarang. University of Minnesota Press. ISBN: ‎9781517908874. [Preview with Google Books]
• Anderson, Ryan B. 2022. “The Taboo of Retreat: The Politics of Sea Level Rise, Managed Retreat, and Coastal Property Values in California.” Economic Anthropology 9, no. 2: 284–96.
• Vaughn, Sarah E. 2017. “Disappearing Mangroves: The Epistemic Politics of Climate Adaptation in Guyana.” Cultural Anthropology 32, no. 2: 242–68.
• von Hardenberg, Wilko Graf. 2020. “Measuring Zero at Sea: on the Delocalization and Abstraction of the Geodetic Framework.” Journal of Historical Geography 68: 11–20.

Session 12: Waves

• Helmreich, Stefan. 2023. “Preface: Wave Clutter.” In A Book of Waves. Duke University Press. ISBN: ‎9781478019947. [Preview with Google Books]
• ———. “Introduction: Significant Waves.” In A Book of Waves. Duke University Press. ISBN: ‎9781478019947. 
• ———. “From the Water Wolf to the Sand Motor.” Chapter 1 in A Book of Waves. Duke University Press. ISBN: ‎9781478019947. 
• ———. “Flipping the Ship.” Chapter 2 in A Book of Waves. Duke University Press. ISBN: ‎9781478019947. 
• ———. “Waves to Order and Disorder.” Chapter 3 in A Book of Waves. Duke University Press. ISBN: ‎9781478019947.

Other Readings Under Consideration

• Alaimo, Stacy. 2017. “The Anthropocene at Sea: Temporality, Paradox, Compression.” Chapter 16 in Routledge Companion to the Environmental Humanities. Edited by Ursula K. Heise, Jon Christensen, and Michelle Niemann. Routledge. ISBN: ‎9781138786745.
• Anderson, Jon, and Kimberley Peters, eds. 2014. Water Worlds: Human Geographies of the Ocean. Routledge. ISBN: ‎9781409450511. [Preview with Google Books]
• Lehman, Jessica. 2016. “A Sea of Potential: The Politics of Global Ocean Observations.” Political Geography 55: 113–23.
• Mentz, Steve. 2019. “Experience Is Better than Knowledge: Premodern Ocean Science and the Blue Humanities.” Configurations 27, no. 4: 433–42.
• Rozwadowksi, Helen. 2019. Vast Expanses: A History of the Oceans. Reaktion Books. ISBN: ‎9781780239972. [Preview with Google Books]
• Watts, Laura, and Brit Ross Winthereik. 2017. “Ocean Energy at the Edge.” Chapter 13 in Ocean Energy: Governance Challenges for Wave and Tidal Stream Technologies. Edited by Glen Wright, Sandy Kerr, and Kate Johnson. Routledge. ISBN: ‎9781138668522. 
• Hamilton-Peterson, James. 2007. Seven-Tenths: The Sea and Its Thresholds. Faber and Faber. ISBN: 9780571229383.
• Amrith, Sunil. 2020. “Climate Change and the Future of the Indian Ocean.” In Indian Ocean Current: Six Artistic Narratives. Edited by Prasannan Parthasarathi, 141–50. McMullen Museum of Art, Boston College. ISBN: ‎9781892850409.
• Bhattacharyya, Debjani. 2021. “A River Is Not a Pendulum: Sediments of Science in the World of Tides.” Isis 112, no. 1: 141–9.
• Samuelson, Meg, and Charne Lavery. 2019. “The Oceanic South.” English Language Notes 57, no. 1: 37–50.
• Strang, Veronica. 2023. “Introduction.” In Water Beings: From Nature Worship to the Environmental Crisis. Reaktion Books. ISBN: ‎9781789146882. [Preview with Google Books]
• ———. “Being Ubiquitous.” Chapter 1 in Water Beings: From Nature Worship to the Environmental Crisis. Reaktion Books. ISBN: ‎9781789146882. [Preview with Google Books] 
• Gumbs, Alexis Pauline. 2020. “Breathe.” Chapter 2 in Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals. AK Press. ISBN: ‎9781849353977. [Preview with Google Books]
• Hayward, Eva. 2005. “Enfolded Vision: Refracting the Love Life of the Octopus.” (PDF) Octopus: A Visual Studies Journal 1: 29–44.