Ocean Ecologies and Imaginaries
Elizabeth DeLoughrey
English
UC Los Angeles
Participants
Kyle Cavanaugh
Geography
UC Los Angeles
Una Chaudhuri
English and Drama
New York University
Christopher Connery
Literature
UC Santa Cruz
Jacob Darwin Hamblin
History
Oregon State University
Stephan Helmreich
Anthropology
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Bonnie Monteleone
Plastics Ocean Researcher
UNC Wilmington
Lizabeth Paravisini-Gerbert
Hispanic Studies
Vassar College
Phil Steinberg
Geography
Durham University
Linda Williams
School of Art
RMIT University
There has been an “oceanic turn” in scholarship of the past decade. “Ocean Ecologies and Imaginaries” moves beyond ocean as metaphor to engage it as an ecology, resource, nexus of biopiracy, place of sea-level rise, mineral extraction, waste dumping, and artistic performance. The project is concerned with work that focuses in and of the sea, rather than its crossing. In an era of climate change that is made visible by sea-level rise, the oceanic imaginary takes on new urgency and valence, and demands multiple disciplinary approaches. “Ocean Ecologies and Imaginaries” establishes a dialogue about how “oceanic ecologies and imaginaries” function in each of our respective fields, to workshop and submit four essays to the Journal of Transnational American Studies and prepare the launch of an online E-book project bringing the groups interdisciplinary engagements, particularly visual representations, to the general public.
