Oceans are rarely neutral places. They provoke the human imagination, arouse emotions of fear and nostalgia, and are sites of pleasure, contemplation, heroism, and death. Oceans constitute 70% of the world’s surface and are home to 94% of all the species on earth. How might we comprehend the vastness of oceans? What do oceans tell us about our past, present and future?
In 2020-2021, the UC Humanities Center sought to foster understanding of how the oceans and waterways of the world have shaped humanities-based inquiry and cultural production. Programs explored the “blue humanities” or how oceans and oceanic connections shift our concepts of space, time, and human relations to the environment and the non-human. The “Oceans” theme also provided an opportunity to engage in cross-disciplinary dialogue, bringing the humanities into conversation with science, technology, engineering, arts, and medicine.
