ABOUT THE SERIES
Bringing together scholars from across the humanities, the series examines water not simply as a natural resource or geographic boundary, but as a powerful force connecting communities, ecosystems and ideas. Through conversations spanning literature, history, environmental thought and cultural studies, the Blue Humanities Speaker Series invites audiences to consider how our relationships with water reveal broader questions of movement, memory, power and responsibility—and how the humanities can help us imagine more just and sustainable futures.
SPEAKERS
Barbara and Carlisle Moore Professor in English
Core Faculty in Environmental Studies
University of Oregon
Associate Professor, History
University at Albany
Andrew B. Hammond Professor of French Language, Literature, and Civilization Professor of English
Stanford University
SERIES EVENTS
Friday, Sep. 18
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THINKING IN WATER: A CONVERSATION AT THE INTERSECTION OF ART & HUMANITIES
A reading group facilitated by Sara Garzón, Associate Curator of Contemporary Art
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11 a.m.–1 p.m.| Harn Museum of Art
ABOUT THE READING GROUP:
What does it mean to think of ourselves not simply as beings who depend on water, but as bodies of water ourselves?
Facilitated by Sara Garzón, Associate Curator of Contemporary Art at the Harn Museum of Art, this interdisciplinary reading group explores hydrofeminism, the hydrocommons and the relationships among bodies, water and more-than-human worlds.
The discussion will pair Astrida Neimanis’ “Hydrofeminism: Or, On Becoming a Body of Water” and Lisa Blackmore’s “Art for the Hydrocommons: Rethinking Human-Water Relations in Latin America” with selected works from the Harn exhibition Layered Lives, featuring 10 contemporary Cuban women artists. Participants will also consider works from across the Harn’s collections that engage inland and coastal waters.
Together, the readings and artworks invite participants to consider water as more than landscape or resource—as a force connecting bodies, environments, histories and communities. The reading group offers an interactive introduction to themes that will continue during Stacy Alaimo’s Oct. 1 visit as part of the Blue Humanities Speaker Series.
ASSIGNED READINGS:
- Astrida Neimanis, “Hydrofeminism: Or, On Becoming a Body of Water”
- Lisa Blackmore, “Art for the Hydrocommons: Rethinking Human-Water Relations in Latin America”
Interested in attending? Please contact us at humanities-center@ufl.edu to join.
In partnership with:
Thursday, Oct. 1
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STACEY ALAIMO
University of Oregon
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“The Abyss Stares Back: Science and Aesthetics in the Deep Sea“
4–5:30 p.m. | Smathers 100
ABOUT THE TALK
As gorgeous images of deep sea life circulate through digital media, the popular regard for the strange morphologies of abyssal creatures saturates science with dazzling beauty. The Abyss Stares Back: Encounters with Deep Sea Life traces how abyssal life travels through science, art, literature, and popular culture, from the 1930s to the present, focusing on the volatile relations between science and aesthetics, as well as the tensions between colonial visions and Black, Indigenous, feminist and queer perspectives that stress an ethics of kinship and material enmeshment. During this paradoxical moment when both “discovery” of deep sea species and destruction of ocean habitats are accelerating, what would it take to spark concern for life in the abyss?
“Elemental Thinking in Media Studies, Science Studies, and Indigenous Studies“
TBD | Jerome A. Yavitz Conference Room
ABOUT THE WORKSHOP:
This workshop features the transdisciplinary methodologies of the Elements series at Duke UP, edited by Courtney Berger, Nicole Starosielski and Stacy Alaimo. Participants will be invited to read chapters from a few of the books in the series before the workshop and to bring comments and questions about the readings. Participants will also be invited to discuss how they might incorporate “elemental thinking” or other transdisciplinary methods within their own research. We will be sure to discuss what it means to engage with materiality and the elemental (which have long been within the domain of the hard sciences) in humanities research.
Interested in attending? Please contact us at humanities-center@ufl.edu to join.
Co-sponsored by:
TBD
Thursday, Oct. 15
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FILM SCREENING: RIVER OF GRASS
A free public screening of Sasha Wortzel’s award-winning documentary
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Time TBD | Hippodrome Theatre
ABOUT THE SCREENING:
What does it mean to think of ourselves not simply as beings who depend on water, but as bodies of water ourselves?
How can a landscape hold histories of environmental change, human intervention and cultural memory?
Join us for a free public screening of Sasha Wortzel’s River of Grass, a documentary centered on the Florida Everglades and the complex relationships among water, land, people and place. Presented as part of the Blue Humanities Speaker Series, the screening invites audiences to consider the Everglades not only as an ecological environment, but as a landscape shaped by histories, communities and competing visions of Florida’s future.
The event also connects with the UF Center for Landscape Conservation Planning’s Wild Waters: Rivers, Lakes, Wetlands, Coast, and the Florida Wildlife Corridor exhibition at the Governor’s House, extending conversations about Florida’s waterways, conservation and environmental change across film, art and the humanities.
Together, the screening and related collaborations offer a distinctly Florida perspective on the Blue Humanities, exploring how water shapes the places we inhabit, the stories we tell and the futures we imagine.
Interested in attending? Please contact us at humanities-center@ufl.edu to join.
In partnership with:
Thursday, Nov. 5
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CHRISTOPHER PASTORE
University at Albany, State University of New York
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“A Thousand Thousand Slimy Things: A Natural History of the Sea from the Bottom Up”
4–5:30 p.m. | Smathers 100
ABOUT THE TALK
Slimy things have long tended to lurk among the frontiers of natural knowledge, reflecting not only the anxieties of each age but also, in many cases, new possibilities. Beginning in the seventeenth century and ending in the nineteenth, this presentation focuses on the ways regular people—fishermen, divers, boatmen, and women, among others—created new knowledge about the Atlantic world both literally and figuratively “from the bottom up.” In their close consideration of everything from sea beans to seaweeds, these oceanic observers charted the principal pathways of Atlantic circulation, organized the taxonomies of sea creatures, and built a new science of marine algae.
“Sea Foam: Myth, Materiality, and the Origins of Ancient Oceans”
ABOUT THE WORKSHOP:
Centering on a book chapter about the mythologies and material histories of the ancient ocean, this workshop explores the marine life and legends that shaped early understandings of the North Atlantic. Focusing on mermaids, sea serpents, eels and other slippery or “slimy” oceanic creatures, the session brings geological and biological accounts of the Atlantic’s formation into conversation with Native American, African and European traditions.
Participants will consider how real and imagined sea creatures influenced the environmental history and cultural geography of the Atlantic from prehistory through the age of exploration. Together, the group will examine how myth, ecology and materiality helped define the ocean as both a physical environment and a space of cultural encounter, fear and possibility.
Interested in attending? Please contact us at humanities-center@ufl.edu to join.
Co-sponsored by:
TBD
Wednesday, Feb. 11
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MARGARET COHEN
Stanford University
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ABOUT THE TALK
TBD
4–5:30 p.m. | Smathers 100
ABOUT THE WORKSHOP
TBD
Interested in attending? Please contact us at humanities-center@ufl.edu to join.
Co-sponsored by:
TBD
