HIST219 Oceanic Histories Colgate University HIST219 – Oceanic Histories

INTRO: It may seem self-evident that oceans have histories, that far from being timeless, theyconstantly change. Nonetheless, this is a relatively recent idea. This course takes this idea asits starting point, and in doing so explores oceans and coastal areas as more than simplyspaces, but as complex historical entities. Marine environmental history will provide themain framework for the course, although maritime history and oceanic studies concepts–such as Atlantic and Pacific Worlds–will also feature prominently. The course givesparticular attention to the period of increasing globalization and drastically intensifyinghuman exploitation of the oceans since roughly the fifteenth century. It also, however,considers pre-modern, pre-industrial relations between humans, oceans, and marineenvironments, suggesting their mutual influences long before the period usually associatedwith major human effects on the environment.W. Jeffrey Bolster, The Mortal Sea: Fishing the Atlantic in the Age of Sail (Harvard UP, 2012).Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting NarrativeRyan Tucker Jones, Empire of Extinction: Russians and the North Pacific’s Strange Beasts of the Sea,1741-1867 (Oxford, 2014)Eric Paul Roorda, ed., The Ocean Reader: History, Culture, Politics (Duke UP, 2020).Carl Safina, Eye of the Albatross: Visions of Hope and Survival (Holt, 2003).This assignment is to write a 6-7-page essay analyzing a primary source – Chicago style. Your essay should draw on lectures, class discussions, and other readings from the class to analyze the source you’ve chosen,making sure to advance an argument about the source in light of major themes, concepts,and/or historical trends we have studied this semester. This will be a relatively short paper, so Ido not expect an exhaustive treatment of your source. I also do not necessarily expect sweepingarguments oceanic history across the entire period we cover in the course—your essay could makebroad claims, but it should place the source in its particular context. I suggest you focus youranalysis on what you determine to be the most significant issue (or set of issues) in the sourcePLEASE SEE ATTACHMENT TITLED – “Question” for the assignment and Syllabus for background info.