Oceanic Literature and the Blue Humanities: Narratives of the Sea in Literature and Culture

Oceanic literature has become an important area of practice in literary and cultural studies, especially in the interdisciplinary context of the Blue Humanities. It examines the role of oceans, seas and maritime spaces in constructing the histories of migration, empire, environment and identity. Oceanic literature prefigures water as a physical and metaphorical agent that unites cultures, economies, and ecologies, unlike land-centred traditions of history and literature. This paper follows the history of the relevance of oceanic literature as a discipline, exploring its convergence with postcolonial studies, ecocriticism, diaspora studies and memory. It pays particular attention to the way in which oceanic storeys undermine national borders, emphasising ecological disasters and discourses that redefine global interconnection.