While rereading the article on the Blue Humanities, I kept thinking how when a society advances we become self-reliant and dependent. In addition, Steve Mentz’s “A poetics of planetary water” solidifies the idea that the sea should be a meditative condition, not necessarily something to believe by sight. The sea as a form of the unknown and unconventional would diminish in value, being purely for aesthetic and commercial appeal if its knowledge becomes easily reproducible. Gillis states that “Until the nineteenth century, notes writer James Hamilton-Paterson,”… our understanding of the sea was “literally superficial, . . . a navigable surface, obviously, above an abyss.(Gillis)” In this instance, the sea was a superficial symbol to status because we had less information about the sea to even acknowledge its significance. The article illustrates the depth to how much information we hold in digital and real time, but with that power, the aesthetic of the sea repeats itself as it becomes recycled and reproduced overtime. With this in mind, Mentz also suggests that water is everywhere– as a solid liquid, and gas– but, it is something we feel the most: “Water changes appear intimately and tangibly. We feel them on our skin(Mentz 144-145).” Consequentially, would already knowing the sea mean we have the advantage to dismiss subjectivity and prioritize Western principle in institutions as beforehand during the Industrial era? In modern day, it can be witnessed digitally without any thought of its significance. I guess there is no real concern besides the sea becoming less anticipated and groundbreaking as before, but one can only speculate how the symbol of the sea becomes marketable– in a good or bad way? In a way, planetary water is restricted for the elite knowledge and the sea as a symbol of hope for marginalized communities becomes a medium to manipulate the less privileged.

For a summer class, I studied anthropology and how literature keeps the area of study alive with its material culture. While the sea is a body of water that cannot be analyzed all at once, one notable thing stood out to me in the class, which is: the anticipation of fiction, with maritime curiosity, helps us prepare for events that are unexpected and out of the ordinary. I think there are pros and cons into regulating and advancing the information of the sea, but it depends on how it is viewed as in society’s grapple. With this in mind, I am interested to see how we then prepare for this advancement of knowing the seas and how we preserve maritime literature for future generations.