Category Archives: oceans

Octopus for Christmas

December 25, 2013 No, not salmon, that eminently respectable candidate for a fishetarian dinner.  Octopus instead, still exotic and dubious-looking in this part of the world, but a common food staple in Japan and throughout the Mediterranean: in Spain, Portugal, … Continue reading

Posted in Animals, epic, Food in literature, Global South, oceans, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Ann Petry, Katharine Hepburn: the 1938 Hurricane

September 25, 2014 I found out only quite recently that Ann Petry had a second novel, very different from her first.   And I bet I’m not alone — another version of the Invisible Man syndrome.   Except that Country … Continue reading

Posted in African-American literature, Climate change, oceans, Twentieth century literature | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Beyond a Boundary: C. L. R. James in Glasgow

May 13, 2013 Scotland and the Caribbean?   The architecture of Glasgow tells a dramatic story.   Here, in the center of town, is  the many-pillared Gallery of Modern Art,  monumental  even for a museum, which used to be the … Continue reading

Posted in Americas, architecture, Atlantic, Caribbean literature, Cities, Colonization, Contemporary Art, film medium, Global South, oceans, Race, scale, slavery, Sports, Twentieth century literature, Universities | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Linda Hogan, Herman Melville: People of the Whale

April 10, 2013 The Native Americans have always been there, of course.   The very name of the ship brings up their ghostly presence, for “Pequod, you will no doubt remember, was the name of a celebrated tribe of Massachusetts … Continue reading

Posted in Animals, Asia, collaboration, Contemporary novel, Ethnicity, Native-American literature, Nineteenth-century literature, oceans, Race, WAr | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Edward Weston, Walt Whitman: Grass

November 7, 2012 Whitman, poet of New Jersey and New York.   Also poet of grass, the force of demographics, what comes up from the ground. He would have been unsurprised by Hurricane Sandy, or by the rising sea levels … Continue reading

Posted in Atlantic, Autobiography, Cities, Climate change, collaboration, Environmentalism, Modern art, Nineteenth-century literature, oceans, Photography, planet, print medium, Publishers, Remediation, twentieth century art, Vernacular dialects, Visual arts | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Unending Katrina: Dave Eggers’ Zeitoun

October 31, 2012 I never made it to the World Humanities Forum, a small story in a big storm. New Orleans and New York: this is the tale of two cities that is now unfolding.   I wish I could say: … Continue reading

Posted in Cities, Climate change, Contemporary novel, Environmentalism, Ethnicity, Genre, Islam, Media, Middle East, oceans, World religions | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Atlantic Sound: Caryl Phillips, Thomas Pynchon, Richard and Mimi Fariña

August 22, 2012 At the end of  The Atlantic Sound, Caryl Phillips is in Israel, visiting a community of Black Hebrews, almost 2000 of them, African-Americans who emigrated from the United States. They have given up their U.S. citizenship, but … Continue reading

Posted in African-American literature, African-American music, Asia, Atlantic, Black-Jewish alliances, Caribbean literature, collaboration, Creole, Diaspora, Educational institutions, Ethnicity, Mediterranean, Middle East, Music, oceans, peripheral networks, Remediation, slavery, Twentieth century literature, Universities, World history, world literature, YouTube videos | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Oceanic Archives, Hong Kong University 2012

June 5, 2012 At least I’ve heard Elizabeth DeLoughrey before.   She’s been working on this stuff for years, it’s always a pleaure to get a new installment — in this case, the ocean in danger of being reterritorialized by “seasteading” and … Continue reading

Posted in Americas, Arabic, Chinese art, Christianity, Cities, collaboration, Creole, Diaspora, Ethnicity, Islam, mexico, Nineteenth-century literature, oceans, peripheral networks, print medium, Spanish, World religions | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment