A workshop organized by Mana Kia and Debashree Mukherjee (MESAAS, Columbia University).
Things look different when viewed from the ocean. Categories such as territory, nation, and region can feel less certain, while embodiment, faith, and emotion can become more immediate. Our thematic – of oceanic imaginations – is designed to explore the theoretical, methodological, and material insights to be gained from an oceanic perspective on culture, religion, and the practices of everyday life. Oceans have for long been understood as conduits of movement linking different land masses and peoples together. As connective zones, oceans push us to break out of the siloes of area studies and think more expansively past the transnational. And thus, we know that the circulation of people, texts, goods, practices, and ideas have thick and deep histories across Africa and Asia. However, beyond economically determined factors, what are the constituting elements of these networks of circulation? Moreover, can we think the ocean not only as a space that connects to other places but as a watery, vital place with its own material specificities? In recent years there has been a shift away from a focus on mobility and economic history, towards cultural and interdisciplinary studies that take the "ocean-ness" of oceans seriously. Much of this work, tentatively termed “critical ocean studies,” is a response to the epistemic provocations of the Anthropocene. We propose to link the insights of an earlier model of oceanic studies that broke new ground in studies of race, colonialism, and material culture, with emerging interests that seek to revitalize our assumptions about the environment, aesthetics, and belief systems. As scholars committed to transregional, anti-imperial, and feminist historiography, the ocean is a particularly rich analytic to think with, as well as a mobile and material place to think from.
Workshop Schedule
Day 1: Thursday, May 6
9 am – 11 am EST
Samia Khatun, SOAS, University of London
Dariya the Slave Girl: The Ocean in Bengali Oral Poetry
Katherine Butler Schofield, King’s College, London
The Oceanic Voyages of the Indian Ghazal and the Limits of Sympathy: A View from the Straits Settlements, c. 1830–60
Respondent: Ananya Jahanara Kabir, King’s College, London
Day 2: Friday, May 7
8 am – 10 am EST
Meg Samuelson, University of Adelaide
Containerized and Inundating Oceans: Thinking from the Cape and Through Blue Focalisation
Natasha Eaton, University College London
In the Eye of the Ocean: Art, Labour, Tears in South Asia
Respondent: Celina Jeffery, University of Ottawa
Day 3: Saturday, May 8
9 am – 11 :30am EST
Samhita Sunya, University of Virginia
Contraband Media in the Indian Ocean: Piracy, More or Less?
Karen Pinto, Loyola University Maryland
All the World is an Island: Seas Imagined, Depicted, and Crossed in Islamicate Maps, Geography, and Art
Respondent: Sebastian Prange, University of British Columbia
Download the full schedule.
