Workshop 2026: Cultural Studies and the Blue Humanities

The Blue Humanities – a term coined by Steve Mentz in 2009 – have emerged as a rapidly growing interdisciplinary field dedicated to exploring the cultural, historical, and literary relationships between humans and water. Mentz describes the Blue Humanities as “a form of literary and cultural criticism that puts water at the centre” (2024, 24). Aquatic environments of inquiry include oceans and rivers as well as hybrid spaces such as coastlines, bogs, and marshes. Such environments have played crucial roles in shaping histories of colonialism, slavery, migration, and global trade; they have informed cultural conceptions of territory and the nation-state; and are affected by contemporary challenges such as climate change, rising sea levels, pollution, and overfishing.

The WBS will explore the role and contribution of Cultural Studies to the Blue Humanities. It will introduce participants to current research on watery spaces and their cultural meanings. A particular focus on Great Britain offers a productive point of departure. Surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, Great Britain’s insular geography played a key role in facilitating colonial expansion and maritime trade, while also contributing to a national self-understanding shaped by both connection and separation from continental Europe; the Irish Sea has functioned as a corridor of Irish migration to Britain; water features prominently in contemporary British cultural imaginaries of climate crisis and post-apocalyptic futures, where flooding and submersion figure as recurring anxieties.

Throughout the workshop, participants will engage with water as an object of study as well as a method and mode of thinking. Interactive sessions will include creative writing workshops that explore aquatic perspectives and imaginaries, as well as interdisciplinary exchanges with scholars from non-humanities fields. Participants will have the opportunity to present and discuss ongoing research, exchange ideas about water-related crises and their cultural implications, and attend a presentation on copyright and research practices.