The Mediterranean Seminar/UCMRP in Mediterranean Studies present:
An International Symposium/Workshop to be held at UC Santa Cruz, 2-4 May, 2013

A maritime perspective provides scholars with a fresh approach to the study of society and culture, including the development of art, literature, and institutions. In the mid-twentieth century, Fernand Braudel first reformulated the history of Early Modern Europe and the Islamic world by taking the sea between them not as a barrier but as an analytical starting point. Taking geography as its point of departure, this history focused not on the supposedly inherent qualities that separated them, but on the connections that bound the people of the coasts and their continental hinterlands to various trans-Mediterranean others. Emphasizing the importance of movement, trade, and communication, it invited the interrogation of categories that had come to seem self-evident (especially the nation), challenged the foundations of dominant historical metanarratives, and called new attention to the significance of peoples and places long regarded as mere intermediaries.

This gathering invites scholars of the humanities and social science engaged in the study of maritime environments–in particular, the application of Oceanic models (pertaining to the Mediterranean, the Atlantic, Pacific, or Indian Oceans, etc.) to the study of the history of human society and culture. Rather than pure research presentations or case studies, Papers (20 minutes) should engage explicitly and directly with the Mediterranean and/or Oceanic Studies as methodological frames or emerging disciplines. Themes include:

– “In the sea” or “of the sea? The practica of maritime methodologies; geographical determinism and/or human adaptations;
– Revelations and Revisions: What the sea brings to scholarship.
– The historiography and reception of the sea in scholarship

This conference will be held in conjunction with the Mediterranean Studies UCMRP Spring workshop.

Symposium and Workshop Program (PDF)