Tag Archives: Blue Humanities

Week 15: Conclusions/What I Learned

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The moment I saw a mermaid on the syllabus I just knew it would change and shift my perspectives. I have never in my academic career equated the environment with being anything more than a dormant and dead piece of matter that happens to give us structure to walk on and build on; nothing more. This preconceived notion was completely blown up by the literature we interacted with throughout the entire semester; and not only that but the texts made me question and identify how those conceptions were constructed in the first place. Why did I think all mermaids were white? Why was I so disconnected to the environment? Who convinced me that nature mattered less than me? Who taught me that I was apart from nature and not a part? All of these reevaluations entered my head throughout my time in each lecture.

Each text was very rich in culture and information but my favorite and most notable were the texts regarding the Blue Humanities. As an English major, I am often queried about what I want to do with an English degree; Do you want to be a teacher? What can you do with that? The Blue Humanities connects literature with the environment, evoking emotional connectivity, historically rich texts, and a projects an urge to reconnect with the environment. The genre of the Blue Humanities is able to understand that humans are very emotionally intelligent and when one connects these emotions to the environment, a “lifeless” mute piece of earth, one may cultivate care and respect towards our home. All of this action was inspired through various forms of literature, words, language, rhetoric; all encompassing traits that make up what an English major practices every day. This class made me feel like I chose a very important major that could give me the tools to change perceptions and maybe even the world. (That was corny, I know😭)

Final Essay Outline

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Hey guys,

Here is the outline of my final essay for this class; Let me know what you think or feel that I could add to my body paragraphs! 🙂 Thanks.

Title: “Straight to the Heart”

Thesis: In order to get humans to begin to reconnect with their forsaken connection to nature, the environment we live in and are inherently apart of, we must personify it through the use of literature and the understandings of the Blue Humanities; thus retying the knot between humans and the environment for the betterment of society and future generations.

Body 1: What is the environmental crisis?

  • Global warming, air pollution, overfishing etc (Source “Emergence of Environmental Humanities”)
  • Why haven’t we fixed it, the roadblocks, etc

Body 2: How will literature help?

  • People take action when they feel emotionally inclined (Source: “Blue Humanities”)
  • Literature evokes emotion and understanding
  • Speak on Mama Dlo (Mami wata) in terms of how she protects the ocean and now has people taking off their left shoe and walking backwards proving the power of literature

Body 3: So what? Why should we care and reconnect with the environment?

  • The world will live with or without us (Source: Sirenomelia)
  • The sea is of so much cultural significance and should be treated accordingly (Source “The Sea Is History”)
  • Tie it all together by saying not only do we need the environment to physically thrive but culturally, which then translates into emotionally, as well

Understanding the Ocean: Art vs. Science

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While reading The Blue Humanities, by John R. Gillis, I kept thinking about the relationship between art and science.

I believe that both art and science are ultimately trying to accomplish the same goal – albeit by taking different steps. To me, the goal of art is to spread awareness and an overall understanding of any specific issue or topic by creating something an audience can observe and explore with their imagination. Whether its a movie, song, painting, etc. it is my understanding that art is to be carefully crafted in order to raise a question in the viewers mind that they are supposed to answer for themselves. Science, seems to be the opposite. Where art aims to ask questions, science wants to provide an answer. Science produces theories that are meant to be tested and experimented with to get the greatest understanding of the subject as possible.

So where does the Ocean come in with all of this? Well, with the ocean being so vast and mysterious – it is no question why so many works of art have been produced with the ocean being the main character. It’s unpredictable and violent while also being calm and serene. It is the perfect canvas to paint upon the fears, desires, and wonders of the human mind. But how does writing a book affect the ocean? Making a movie? Writing a song? The biggest influence art has on the ocean is how we view this integral part of our world. Could it lead us to wanting to investigate it.

Where we observe the ocean through art, we could disrupt it with science. While we can learn a lot about the ocean through research, there’s a difference between observing it as it currently exists and observing it with a plethora of variables. Human beings have an impact on everything they decide to get themselves involved with. I am not against science in the slightest, but I do tend to associate the urge we have to “understand” the world around us with the tendancy to try and control it. I think that we cant fathom the perfectly chaotic synergy of the Natural World. We require structure in our lives to make the world go ’round, so we intend to implement that structure on a world that would be better off without it. The way I see it, we are product of the Natural World, but we are in no way a part of it. I dont think we can return to it, so ultimately this debate on whether understanding the world through art is better than doing so through science or vice versa is rather moot.

Sorry for the downer post, I’ve just been chasing this idea around in my head and reading The Blue Humanities somehow made the idea click into place.

Reflection on “The Blue Humanities” by John R. Gillis

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The article discusses many aspects of humans’ understanding about the ocean. It begins by stating that humans know more about the moon than the depth of the ocean, which is amusing considering we live alongside it. Because of it being unknown, the article explains the ocean was feared before the 19th century. It was perceived as “dangerous and repellant, ugly and unfit for literary or artistic representation” (Gillis). However, in the 19th century it was through literary and artistic representation that humans began to connect with the ocean and use it to reflect their own lives. I thought this was fascinating because it became a sort of trend for people and even those who didn’t associate with the ocean, still represented traces of it in their daily lives, the article quotes, “the ocean entered the minds, homes, dreams, and conversation of ordinary people.” It was in the 19th and 20th century that the sea was finally associated with life rather than death as a “three-dimensional living thing with a history, geography, and a life of its own.” In relation, Writers and painters turned their attention to the ocean when nations turned away and allowed for the ocean to be a place for metaphors. Another big part of this cultural shift is archeology and anthropology because it brought us more knowledge about the history of the ocean through scientific studies. The ocean began to shift from a lifeless place to a place filled with life. Today, we are able to explore the history of the ocean and its characteristics, “ocean currents, tides, and waves.” Overall, blue humanities, as mentioned in the article, “recognizes the close relationship between modern western culture and the sea” which highlights the cultural shift humans have had and continue to have with the sea.

Week 9: Blue Humanities

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“Early modern science knew much more about the heavens than about the oceans; and more attention was paid to extracting the wealth of the seas, namely fish, than to the waters themselves. All that lay beneath the surface—The Deep—was thought to be an unfathomable abyss, impenetrable and unknowable, a dark dead zone that trapped all that sank below the surface, never revealing its secrets.”

Reading Blue Humanities this week reaffirmed the idea that we really don’t know anything about the ocean. Most of what we know is either what we have explored (which is so minor compared to the percentage of the ocean that is undiscovered), or what we have created through our imagination. Similar to last week’s reading, we created an “aesthetic” of the ocean. What was once considered a scary unknown, is now an element of nature that brings serenity and peace to people. This shift in mindset and attitude towards the ocean and the wilderness in a way is kind of refreshing because I think it encourages us to be more protective over earth. Although preservation tactics and human consumption have been an ailment to nature, viewing natural elements in a humanly-beneficial way can motivate politicians and people in general to shift towards saving the planet.

Week 9: Blue Humanities

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In last week’s reading we have learnt that recreation at a sea has only become relevant, because humans have culturally produced the sea to be a place to go to take a break. I was reminded of that and saw correlations between the article “Blue Humanities” and last week’s reading. As being said in Gillis’ article, “nations turned away from the sea as a place of work that writers and painters turned their full attention to the sea itself. They turned it, as never before, into a place of spiritual and physical recreation […] they gave it new cultural status, a higher aesthetic power” (Gillis). What I found to be interesting about that, is that this transformation once again reflects broader shifts in societal values and attitudes towards nature and the environment. Apart from, it resembles people’s desires in an ever-changing world (the time of industrialization). Now that industries developed and people moved to the cities, they also got disconnected to the natural world. The sea thus got romanticized as a consequence and beach activities first got developed, “It was in the era of the thoroughly landlocked industrial revolution that the sea first became a part of mainstream mainland culture”. The middle class of the late 18th century was looking for an unknown natural place, far away from urban cities, to call their new place of recreation.

Another interesting aspect I found in the text is that the sea “became a symbol of eternity, a comfort to those who, having lost their faith in divine dispensation of everlasting life, came to see in its apparently timeless flows evidence of nature’s immortality and a secular promise of life everlasting”. Through what is shown above, one can argue that some of the late 18th century people started to lose their faith in religious concepts of eternal life. Looking at the sea and seeing the waves and tides come and go, gave the people a sense of security, knowing that now nature is immortal.