Introduction

Introduction to the virtual exhibition Oceans in Three Paradoxes: Knowing the Blue through the Humanities.

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

About the author

Rozwadowski, Helen M.

University of Connecticut, USA

Helen M. Rozwadowski is a professor of history and founder of the University of Connecticut’s Maritime Studies program. Her award-winning book, Fathoming the Ocean: The Discovery and Exploration of the Deep Sea, chronicles the nineteenth-century scientific and cultural discovery of the depths. Her recent book, Vast Expanses: A History of the Oceans (Reaktion Books, 2018), which won the Sharon Harris Book Award from UCHI in 2019, came out in a Korean edition in 2019 and a Chinese edition in 2020. She is co-editor of the new University of Chicago Oceans in Depth book series.

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Interview with Deborah R. Coen, author of The Earthquake Observers: Disaster Science from Lisbon to Richter

In this episode from the New Books Network podcast, Deborah R. Coen is interviewed on her recent book, The Earthquake Observers: Disaster Science from Lisbon to Richter.

Read more about Interview with Deborah R. Coen, author of The Earthquake Observers: Disaster Science from Lisbon to Richter

“Negotiating Botanical Collections: Dr Johann Preiss in Germany and Western Australia”

Haebich, Anna. “Negotiating Botanical Collections: Dr Johann Preiss in Germany and Western Australia.” In “The European Exchange,” edited by Ashley Hay and Natasha Cica. The Griffith Review 69 (2020): 101–108.