124265 KO Critical Media Analysis (2022S)

The ocean has been the origin of all life, yet it still remains largely unknown. The sea has always been around us and subject to much imagination. This course takes its title from American marine biologist and writer Rachel Carson’s book "The Sea Around Us" (1951), which offers a poetical approach to oceanography. Following Carson’s evocation of the ocean as “the ever-flowing stream of time, the beginning and the end” (330), we will explore both imaginations, representations and materialities linked to the ocean by looking at a variety of cultural texts and media – film, music, poetry and contemporary art. This course will introduce key terms and questions in the field of the blue humanities and critical ocean studies, ones that encourage students to think critically and creatively about human and non-human relationships and attune their sensibilities to the oceans. Approaching the sea from a cultural studies perspective, our concerns range from ecocritical, ecofeminist to decolonial, Black diasporic and Indigenous debates.

At the end of this class, students will have developed a critical understanding of the ocean in cultural studies through a variety of critical theory and media.
They will be able to contextualize the material covered in class and set it in relation to their historical background and the wider cultural and political discourses in which they are embedded.
Students will be equipped with a number of analytical skills to analyze different cultural media and texts concerned with the ocean.

In this class, we will approach the studies of the ocean from both an academic as well as creative angle. There will be a guest lecture with a workshop by the artist and curator Bryony Gillard, which offers students the opportunity to expand and put into practice their (theoretical) knowledge on the ocean. Students signing up for this class have to attend this workshop. The workshop will take place as a blocked session on May 12.