from landscapes to seascapes |
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Maritime or blue humanities is an interdisciplinary field that explores the cultural, historical, literary, and philosophical dimensions of human relationships with the sea. It is part of a broader environmental humanities movement, which seeks to rethink human interactions with nature beyond traditional land-based perspectives.
One of my favourite foundational texts is Hans Blumenberg's beautiful essay Schiffbruch mit Zuschauer (Shipwreck with Spectator) (1979), musing on the maritime nature of modernity. Having modernity in mind, he begins with Antiquity, and the meaning the navigation acquired in the Greek world and the way how it is connected with yet another great invention of the time, philosophy. Blumenberg employs the metaphor of sailing to construct a vision of cultural history as an irreversible adventure. At the same time, the way an era in cultural history perceives maritime disasters reflects its broader relationship with the world. The metaphor of shipwreck is deeply embedded in European civilization, stemming from ancient Greece, evolving through early modern sea voyages, and culminating in modernity, which builds its identity upon this metaphorical experience. Shipwreck thus serves as a powerful lens through which to examine the underlying patterns and rhythms of cultural development. Blumenberg explores these ideas through six key scenes. He begins with the expedition, seen as a fundamental transgression or “violation of the border” (Grenzverletzung). He then considers what remains for the castaway, introduces the distant observer of the disaster, and examines the specific “art of survival” which is a metaphor for the situation of man in the middle of cultural and historical predicament of modernity. He further highlights modernity’s redefinition of catastrophe, where the detached spectator loses his or her privileged position as shipwreck becomes a universal condition. The final stage is the reconstruction of the ship, built upon the wreckage of yet another historical disaster or shattered utopia. Overall, the metaphor of shipwreck serves Blumenberg as a framework for a broader civilizational anamnesis—an inquiry into the formative traumas that have shaped European identity. The early-modern European maritime expansion, with all the traumas it brought about, is the foundation of the globalized world, in which the oceans connect, rather than separate, the great landmasses and the civilizations that inhabit them. This early-modern Atlantic perspective is naturally proper for someone who comes from the area of Portuguese studies. Since the beginnings of my academic career, I was reading texts that reflected a maritime horizon, the lure of new discoveries, the bitterness and misery of catastrophes on the African shore compiled in História tragico-marítima by Bernardo de Brito. The ocean is the birthplace of capitalism, offering its vastness to unfettered growth and expansion. One of the greatest tragedies associated with this traumatic birth is that of the Flying Hollender, in the Wagnerian version and in its source formulation. Modern Western literature is full of maritime fiction, be it the great story of Moby Dick or the Conradian The Mirror of the Sea and The Heart of Darkness, and, where the deck of a ship is the true locus of the revelation of the condition of man in confrontation with the world and himself. Sea water seems to possess a symbolic valency of creating liminal spaces, beyond good and evil. Nonetheless, the maritime history of humanity did not start with the great European explorations of the 15th and 16th centuries. Also the premodern period, especially late Middle Ages, created their own images and believes related to the sea, the risks of a maritime travel, as well as the other people to be encountered on the opposite shore. Yet it is important to remember that the greatest early nautical adventure is not European at all; the greatest maritime migration in human history is that of the Pacific, and belongs to Polynesian and Micronesian history. Different seas create distinctive sets of concepts and symbols, their specific seascapes. Just to give an example, the Mediterranean as the southern frontier of Europe was associated with the great divide between Western Christianity and Islam. As an imagined space, it was conceptualised through the lens of pilgrimage and holy war, negotium crucis. It contributed to the development of a significant, coherent set of rules, principles and values associated with the Crusades (that influenced the subsequent, early-modern maritime endeavours of the Europeans, including the conquest of the New World). At the same time, also other, suggestive or even haunting images of the sea were produced, just to mention the strange cartographic fantasy produced by Opicinus de Canistris (1296-1353), an Italian priest and mystic who inscribed in the outline of the northern and the southern shores of the Mediterranean the figures of a man and a woman: Adam and Eve at the moment of committing the original sin. The expanse of water was conceptualised as Diabolicum Mare, the Satanic Sea leading to the fall of mankind. On the other hand, the Black Sea was almost an exclusive domain of the Byzantine empire till the fall of the Constantinople. Meanwhile, the Byzantium remained essentially a land power that in time ceded the control and the exploitation of the sea to the Mediterranean maritime states, Venice and Genoa, who helped to revive the commerce that had been thriving in the Antiquity. Apparently, it was, to a greater degree, a “neutral” space of trade instead of war, especially if we compare it with the symbolically and ideologically charged conflict as the Crusades. Nonetheless, the images of alterity to be found on the opposite shore might still be troubling. The Barbarians inhabiting the northern and north-eastern shores of the Black Sea were a constant preoccupation. Also the haunting, macabre factor of the imagination was present, since it was from Kaffa, a city the Genoese purchased in the late 13th century from the Golden Horde, that the great pandemic called the Black Death entered Europe in 1347. For centuries, the ocean has been more than a vast expanse between landmasses—it has been a force that has shaped human destiny. The blue humanities invite us to see the sea not as an empty void, but as a dynamic space of movement, encounter, and transformation. Oceans have carried explorers and exiles, merchants and warriors, shaping migration patterns, trade networks, and entire civilizations. Every cresting wave holds the echoes of histories both grand and tragic, from the voyages of the ancient Greeks to the age of empire and colonization.This deep connection between humanity and the sea is reflected in literature, art, and myth. From The Odyssey to Moby Dick, from sailors’ journals to maritime paintings, the ocean has long been a source of inspiration, symbolizing adventure, mystery, and peril. It is a place of limitless possibility and devastating loss, a realm where human ambition and the forces of nature collide. Yet the sea is not merely a canvas for human imagination—it is also a fragile ecosystem, now at the forefront of the environmental crisis. Rising tides, overfishing, and pollution threaten both marine life and coastal communities. The blue humanities bridge the gap between culture and ecology, urging us to reconsider our responsibility to the world’s waters and the life they sustain. To truly grasp the significance of the ocean, we must shift our perspective. For too long, we have viewed the world through a landlocked lens, yet the sea has its own rhythms, its own histories, and its own ways of life. Maritime labor, indigenous seafaring traditions, and the experience of those who have lived and died at sea challenge us to rethink our assumptions about space, borders, and belonging. This journey across the waters of human history, literature, and ecology is necessarily interdisciplinary. The blue humanities weave together insights from history, philosophy, anthropology, environmental science, and even marine biology, offering a richer, more fluid understanding of human-ocean interactions. To study the sea is to explore the unknown, to embrace the vastness of the world and the stories it holds, and to recognize that our fate, like that of all who have sailed before us, is bound to the ocean’s tides. Vertical Divider
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essential bibliography for maritime humanities
Basic/theoretical texts
Blumenberg, Hans. [1979] 1997. Shipwreck with Spectator: Paradigm of a Metaphor for Existence. Translated by Steven Rendall. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Mack, John. 2011. The Sea: A Cultural History. London: Reaktion Books.
Mentz, Stephen. 2015. Shipwreck Modernity: Ecologies of Globalization, 1550–1719. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Steinberg, Philip E. 2001. The Social Construction of the Ocean. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Maritime history, including the "Black Atlantic" and the history of slave trade
Braudel, Fernand. 1972. The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II. Translated by Siân Reynolds. New York: Harper & Row.
Gilroy, Paul. 1993. The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Paine, Lincoln. 2013. The Sea and Civilization: A Maritime History of the World. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
Finamore, Daniel, ed. 2017. Oceanic Histories. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Sharpe, Christina. 2016. In the Wake: On Blackness and Being. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Maritime perspectives for cultural & literary studies
Cohen, Margaret. 2010. The Novel and the Sea. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Jue, Melody. 2020. Wild Blue Media: Thinking Through Seawater. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
DeLoughrey, Elizabeth. 2007. Routes and Roots: Navigating Caribbean and Pacific Island Literatures. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press.
Lavery, Charne. 2021. Writing Ocean Worlds: Indian Ocean Fiction in English. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.
Mentz, Steven. 2009. At the Bottom of Shakespeare’s Ocean. London: Bloomsbury.
Blum, Hester. 2019. The News at the Ends of the Earth: The Print Culture of Polar Exploration. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Emerging perspectives
Alaimo, Stacy. 2016. Exposed: Environmental Politics and Pleasures in Posthuman Times. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Carson, Rachel. 1951. The Sea Around Us. New York: Oxford University Press.
Ducruet, César. 2023. Maritime Networks: Spatial Structures and Time Dynamics. London: Routledge.
Hofmeyr, Isabel. 2022. Dockside Reading: Hydrocolonialism and the Custom House. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Blumenberg, Hans. [1979] 1997. Shipwreck with Spectator: Paradigm of a Metaphor for Existence. Translated by Steven Rendall. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Mack, John. 2011. The Sea: A Cultural History. London: Reaktion Books.
Mentz, Stephen. 2015. Shipwreck Modernity: Ecologies of Globalization, 1550–1719. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Steinberg, Philip E. 2001. The Social Construction of the Ocean. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Maritime history, including the "Black Atlantic" and the history of slave trade
Braudel, Fernand. 1972. The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II. Translated by Siân Reynolds. New York: Harper & Row.
Gilroy, Paul. 1993. The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Paine, Lincoln. 2013. The Sea and Civilization: A Maritime History of the World. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
Finamore, Daniel, ed. 2017. Oceanic Histories. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Sharpe, Christina. 2016. In the Wake: On Blackness and Being. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Maritime perspectives for cultural & literary studies
Cohen, Margaret. 2010. The Novel and the Sea. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Jue, Melody. 2020. Wild Blue Media: Thinking Through Seawater. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
DeLoughrey, Elizabeth. 2007. Routes and Roots: Navigating Caribbean and Pacific Island Literatures. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press.
Lavery, Charne. 2021. Writing Ocean Worlds: Indian Ocean Fiction in English. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.
Mentz, Steven. 2009. At the Bottom of Shakespeare’s Ocean. London: Bloomsbury.
Blum, Hester. 2019. The News at the Ends of the Earth: The Print Culture of Polar Exploration. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Emerging perspectives
Alaimo, Stacy. 2016. Exposed: Environmental Politics and Pleasures in Posthuman Times. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Carson, Rachel. 1951. The Sea Around Us. New York: Oxford University Press.
Ducruet, César. 2023. Maritime Networks: Spatial Structures and Time Dynamics. London: Routledge.
Hofmeyr, Isabel. 2022. Dockside Reading: Hydrocolonialism and the Custom House. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
my papers in maritime humanities & globalization studies
Between the military and religious history of early globalisation
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Humanities Diliman, vol. 21, no 2, 2024, p. 187-197. ISSN 1655-1532.
https://journals.upd.edu.ph/index.php/humanitiesdiliman/article/view/10275/9100
https://journals.upd.edu.ph/index.php/humanitiesdiliman/article/view/10275/9100
From crux transmarina to Portuguese maritime expansion: a globalisation of the Mediterranean
Analele Universităţii din Bucureşti – Seria Istorie, Anul LXVI, no 1-2/2017 [2020], p. 13-34. ISSN 1220-0255.
