In my last post, I discussed problems of scale. How can we visualize (and discuss) ocean-sized problems from our modest vantage point? Is the “oceanic selfie” a path to a higher level of consciousness, or an anthropocentric dead end? When that post went online, I was in Hawaii and had just finished a couple […]
In my last post, I discussed why sea blindness is not the most useful way to characterize twenty-first century sensibilities. Let’s face it, it just doesn’t make much sense at a time when beachgoers have to be warned, “Don’t take selfies with seals.” Instead, I argued, we should think critically about sea visibility, which is […]
The average Briton is unaware that 95% of the goods they buy arrived on a ship. When asked to name a “well-known British maritime personality,” most respondents said, “Captain Jack Sparrow.” These results are set forth by the Maritime Foundation as evidence of sea blindness.[i] Duncan Redford is one of the few people so far […]
In Mediterranean studies, does the cosmopolitan port town rank alongside “sun and sea… olives and myrtle… the commonplaces pervading the literature, all description and repetition”?[1] Articles with titles like “Cosmopolitanism Reconsidered” and “The Cosmopolitan Mediterranean: Myth and Reality” have raised doubts about the whole project.[2] It’s one thing to state that that two or more […]
To kick off 2016 on the best possible note, here is the Coastal History blog’s fourth guest post, grounded firmly in the Southern Hemisphere. I was in Sydney for a conference a few years back and left very impressed with the nearly ubiquitous signposting and commemoration of the Aboriginal past (and present) in diverse and […]
I’m delighted to introduce the Coastal History blog’s third guest post, by David Worthington, Head of the Centre for History at Scotland’s University of the Highlands and Islands. David has published most widely on British and Irish connections with central Europe in the early modern period, but, in recent years, he has researched and published […]
