This article argues for the term “uncanny water” as a conceptual tool for reading contemporary oceanic fictions.
“This article historicizes the casual and common understanding that humans are connected to the sea by investigating the precursors to the Homo aquaticus idea, the attempts to realize this prediction through technology, and the legacies emerging from it.”
Chapter 2 from Helen Rozwadowski’s virtual exhibition, “Oceans in Three Paradoxes: Knowing the Blue through the Humanities.”
What can the humanities reveal about people’s interconnections with the ocean, past and present? In 1975, the maritime historian Benjamin Labaree offered an influential argument that the Atlantic acted simultaneously as bridge and moat for European settlers of North America. The paradox of these overlapping functions provided a touchstone for understanding the maritime realm, but it is time to recognize the ocean as more than the flat surface implied by it. Two further pairings, repository–mirror and destination–home, testify to the duration of the human connections with the sea, including its depths, and also to the distinct ocean relationships forged by different cultures. The blue humanities provide a mooring for considering not only the ocean’s past and present but its future as well.
Helen M. Rozwadowski
Chapter 1 of Helen Rozwadowski’s virtual exhibition, Oceans in Three Paradoxes: Knowing the Blue through the Humanities.
What can the humanities reveal about people’s interconnections with the ocean, past and present? In 1975, the maritime historian Benjamin Labaree offered an influential argument that the Atlantic acted simultaneously as bridge and moat for European settlers of North America. The paradox of these overlapping functions provided a touchstone for understanding the maritime realm, but it is time to recognize the ocean as more than the flat surface implied by it. Two further pairings, repository–mirror and destination–home, testify to the duration of the human connections with the sea, including its depths, and also to the distinct ocean relationships forged by different cultures. The blue humanities provide a mooring for considering not only the ocean’s past and present but its future as well.
Helen M. Rozwadowski Introduction to the virtual exhibition Oceans in Three Paradoxes: Knowing the Blue through the Humanities.
What can the humanities reveal about people’s interconnections with the ocean, past and present? In 1975, the maritime historian Benjamin Labaree offered an influential argument that the Atlantic acted simultaneously as bridge and moat for European settlers of North America. The paradox of these overlapping functions provided a touchstone for understanding the maritime realm, but it is time to recognize the ocean as more than the flat surface implied by it. Two further pairings, repository–mirror and destination–home, testify to the duration of the human connections with the sea, including its depths, and also to the distinct ocean relationships forged by different cultures. The blue humanities provide a mooring for considering not only the ocean’s past and present but its future as well.
Helen M. Rozwadowski Joshua L. Reid concludes that the history of Pacific whaling has undergone a scholarly renaissance.
Billie Lythberg and Wayne Ngata explore what it means to be whale people in the modern whaling period.
Jonathan Clapperton details the importance of whaling to Puget Sound Coast Salish people (Puget Salish) along the Pacific Northwest Coast.
Akamine Jun explores foodways of whale meat in Japan, specifically detailing Baird’s-beaked- whaling in eastern Japan.
