Category Archives: Week 4: Prefatory Framing–Mentz and Delblanco

5 Questions for Steve Mentz

Posted on by
Reply
  1. “Deterritorializing” is reminiscent of the more common (and more land-oriented) word “deconstructing,” which is often used in the humanities. Why is it important now more than ever to unlearn what we have learned?
  2. What is your favorite fact you have learned while researching water/the ocean?
  3. Do you think experiencing nature first hand (like being able to see an ice landscape in person) is an important aspect of the blue humanities?
  4. Do you think younger people (school aged children) can benefit from exposure to the blue humanities, or is it a current more suited to the environment of academia and higher education?
  5. When you were younger, what did you want to grow up to be?

Intro to Steve Mentz

Posted on by
1

This week’s reading was interesting as usual. The blue humanities is a new and foreign concept to me, but since we have started talking about it, I am very curious to know more. I have also been attempting to consolidate a definition of it in my head; a more material idea of it. Steve Mentz writes, “I emphasize these specific oceanic margins because of my commitment to linking human-sized encounters to planetary scales. Bringing a little splash of my local Atlantic into a global scholarly conversation will keep these thoughts tangible and direct” When I read this quote, I thought it was a good example of what I understand to be the meaning of blue humanities: a current (see what I did there) that studies people’s relationship with water. Steve Mentz talks about water in his article “A poetics of planetary water: The blue humanities after John Gillis,” but makes a point of grounding (can’t escape it) his musings about this substance in a human perspective. He says that highlighting this relationship is what will keep his thoughts “tangible and direct.” It is interesting how in a conversation about fluidity, distortion, and other unstable qualities of water we find it so necessary to land these ideas onto something more solid, otherwise we won’t be able to understand them. We have to merge the familiar with the unfamiliar to be able to process new knowledge. Our thought processes aim towards finding clarity when water mostly offers distortion, and we fight against it because the water is not our home. Then again, water is transparent, and even though sometimes the ocean is so deep your eyes can’t see the bottom, when you’re there floating in the middle of the great blue, what your eyes detect underwater can only be described as a clarity. Maybe blue humanities can offer us that clarity even though it may not be in the grounded way we are used to. 

“Steve Mentz, ” Deterritorializing Preface”

Posted on by
1

It was a bit difficult to understand, but the reading was interesting and also a way to understand the world differently. In the preface, ” Deterritorializing Preface” by Steve Mentz he mentions to us alternate from “land-based” thinking and to “ocean-based” thinking, which means he wants us of being stable and grounded with the same concept to see it as fluid, changing and spontaneous like the ocean itself. I enjoy the metaphors he uses to describe the ocean as something that can change our lives.” Our metaphors must float on water rather than resting on ground. In an aqueous environment, nothing stays on the surface forever.”( Mentz, xvi), this quote is very relevant and true because nothing stays forever as we must continue with more ideas flowing and coming to our lives instead of being stuck forever in the same routine, lifestyle, ideas, etc. We must continue to evolve in order to improve in our cognitive skills, specifically language.

Thinking, in a oceanic way, can help us see connections, vulnerability and also change our ways in life to something new. I always describe and see the ocean as a human being who can think, shape, and destructible. Amidst of climate change, we need to see the ocean as a a powerful force that can shape a human life. Observing on how the ocean is deteriorating slowly by pollution, plastic waste, etc, Mentz wants us to see it as an awakening towards the direction on how urgent

Week 4, Steve Mentz.

Posted on by
2

I want to talk about Steve’s point of what “poetics” means and he describes it has a singular and plural, then he describes it has “theory of form”. then goes into his idea of ocean thinking when it comes to Poetics. How we read poetry and novels and flip our mindset to an ocean way of thinking to discover this theory of the ocean and how it relates to us and art.

An Everywhere of Silver,
With Ropes of Sand
To keep it from effacing
The Track called Land.

“The Silver does not efface the Land in this poem… The sea-silver the poet presents feels
like a cloud when you walk through it on an alpine hike—soft, wet, intangible, insistently
present” it may be obvious to some that Dickinson is talking about the ocean in this poem but some to not so but its the way this poem is so small but so much unpack. This idea of looking at the ocean maybe on a winter morning and only seeing silver everywhere is so striking to me, and he usage of effacing, I just love the word choice, sand being the reason why the ocean comes to a stop and how we have a clear defining point to land and ocean

Deterritorializing Preface : Steve Mentz

Posted on by
4

Within Steve Mentz’s Deterritorializing Preface, he provides a very interesting insight on how he believes that we should view the world. Every word and idea he presents has a common focus on the idea of fluidity and movement. He considers the best view of the world as one that is ever-changing and allows us to see and think about new ideas and concepts. The quote that I think represented this the best was under his section about Word #7 : Horizon where he says “I imagine horizons as sites of transition, like beaches or coastlines, and also as places where perspectives merge. Horizons of ocean, horizons of currents. These are places from which new things become visible.” I think the way he put this is both beautiful and also extremely interesting. I have always considered my view of the world and just my perspective of things in general to be very structured and organized, so hearing him describe this in such a way was quite eye-opening for me. I consider myself to be an open-minded person, but without structure I do get overwhelmed. But, considering perspectives as shifting and flowing rather than just completely separate and different from one another is a way in which I had never viewed them.

In addition, I think the part of this writing that impacted me and stuck out to me the most is his section about Word #3 : Flow. In this section he says “Thinking in terms of cyclical flows rather than linear progress makes historical narratives messier, more confusing, and less familiar. These are good things.” What really impacted me the most about this quote in particular is how different it is from the way we are taught. In history and english classes growing up, we are taught to memorize events and narratives the exact way in which we are taught and that is something I have taken with me throughout my education. I am very good at understanding the way in which events happen, so the thought of them becoming more confusing and disoriented as something good was kind of a jarring thought. In the same vein, I understand where he is coming from. I feel as if it is very similar to Emerson’s idea of not following what is written by other people. If history becomes messy and confusing, it allows us to create our own ideas and develop a new perspective on events rather than just understanding what happened on a base level. I think this is a concept that I am going to sit and think about for a while.

Word 4: Ship (formerly state)

Posted on by
2

As we learn about blue humanities and sail through histories carried through bodies of water, we must confront the way colonization and imperialism have inherently shaped a culture of the ocean as a tool of the oppressors. While discussing language as a means to dissolve the invisible and terrestrial boundaries imbued by bureaucracy and imperialism, we delve into the history of lands discovered through ship sightings, a history of colonization spreading and arriving by ocean, and a legacy of human cruelty carried across oceans. I think about how the expansion of our language, or deterritorializing, might help us to decolonize a language and a sea of peoples so fragmented and disoriented from movement. Steve Mentz Deterritorializing Preface offers insight into how to Blue humanities, and the ungrounding of our language might help bridge the gap between “our shared cultural history.” 

This complex relationship with the ocean is confronted through the Ship. In this effort to decenter the terrestrial, the ship replaces the state, which “the dissolving force of oceanic history works against nationalism, though at times it may also tend in the directions of global or even imperial totality.(xvi)” The prevailing symbolism of the ship is, to many, an agent of imperialism and capitalism. The ship offers us a way to discuss the converging politics of the world, which have disrupted, uprooted, and scattered humans and cultures throughout the globe. 

While the ship offers an alternative understanding of hierarchy, community, and civilization, it also holds a fragile relationship with the shifting chaos of the sea, and the places it visits, disturbing and changing the fragile ecosystems it comes into contact with. 

Steve Mentz: Oceanic Scholar

Posted on by
3

Deterritorialization. I like this word. Quite the tongue twister if you ask me, and God forbid if I had a stutter. I had to look up the meaning of this word, and it has several different meanings depending on who you ask, but for me, it’s simply a fancy word to describe the change in history. Steve Mentz wants us to rethink, and in return, can ignite a change in the way we view or interpret things. The world is quite literally an open ocean, and so should one’s brain.

“Thinking in terms of cyclical flows rather than linear progress makes historical narratives messier, more confusing, and less familiar. These are good things. (ixvi) Steve Mentz is inviting you to have that hard conversation or think of an unforeseen or unpopular “opinion” and bring it to life. Simply put, there are no wrong answers. He expertly uses the ocean as an example to think beyond the sea, beyond the planet, beyond what we know as life, and allows our feelings, thoughts, and emotions to “flow.” The ocean may be a scary place, but nothing is more unnerving than having these linear thoughts that keep us stagnant and allow history to repeat itself. We often try to see the world or life through a different lens, but Mentz challenges humans to create that lens.

Just like Emerson is to nature, the ocean is Mentz’s version of Emerson’s nature. We take so much from the ocean and other outward things, but it’s time for the ocean to give back to the scholar, offering new ways of thinking and imagination. It’s a scary and confusing concept to embrace, but one would be doing a disservice if they didn’t try. Drowning in one’s linear thoughts could be a slow and painful death.

Steve Mentz 

Posted on by
2

While reading “A Poetics of Planetary Water: The Blue Humanities After John Gillis” by Steve Mentz one thing that stuck with me was our human connection to water. For centuries humans have had a multitude of emotions revolving around the ocean and water as a whole. Feelings as opposite as fear and calmness have been a high point in the ways we speak about the water around us and our connection to it. One passage that I pulled from Mentz article that I felt drawn to was “For literary writers and scholars, the ocean seems especially attractive because of its metaphorical vastness. The great waters represent a principle of narrative fecundity that Salman Rushdie has described as the “sea of stories” (Mentz 140). The ocean draws out curiosity from human beings, the pure depth and feeling of the endlessness of the ocean has created a fascination within people. With these literary writers I have also noticed that although they may be speaking of the same topic, their tone and stories all feel rather unique to me. This could be because water is a representation of life and the different experiences we all have towards it can shape the ways we express ourselves revolving around the topic. The idea of the ocean representing narrative fecundity is something that I never thought much about, the possibilities are endless for creative minds to explore their emotions towards the water. Throughout the article Mentz speaks about not just the ocean but water as a whole having a deep relation with human life and even our cultures. With this in mind I started thinking about the possibilities that could be opened if we look at our lives the same way we do the ocean, as powerful and flowing. Another part of the article that relates to the ways that water can affect us was when Mentz quotes Moby-Dick, “One of the most widely quoted phrases from the novel holds that ‘meditation and water are wedded for ever.’ This phrase, however, does not exclusively describe the salt sea that is the novel’s primary setting” (Mentz 139). This quote along with Mentz point of it not being confined to only the sea is powerful. This explains that the flowing and depth of water is something that we should understand when also speaking of ourselves. Our lives are supposed to move and shift as time goes on much like water. These are all things that I will keep in mind while reading Moby-Dick because I know this novel will make me fall in love with the ideas revolving around blue humanities! 

Steve Mentz – changing what we know and how we think

Posted on by
4

In the preface to Steve Mentz’s work “Deterritorializing,” he offers several different ways to view the world (especially the Ocean) and our way of thinking. The first change he offers is current (formerly field); here Mentz talks about how we should shape our viewing on how we think in fields and areas of expertise. Instead of thinking of it as something that is stable and set in stone, we should think of it as something that is in current and always flowing. Our knowledge shouldn’t be thought of as restricted to a certain subject or area of expertise, instead we should allow our knowledge to flow like water. Mentz writes “Fields produce harvests but can lie allow. Currents flow. We need flow to know Ocean.” In his second change, Mentz writes about water (formerly ground). Here he talks about how we should be reminded that a majority of Earth’s surface is covered in water, not land. Mentz writes “Our metaphors must float on water rather than resting on ground. In an aqueous environment, nothing stays on the surface forever.” What I got from this was that nothing stays the same, much like the flow of water, things rise and sink, and so much our own knowledge of the world. Mentz’s third word is flow (formerly progress). Here we replace the idea of linear progress with the idea that things are constantly changing in flow. This of course changes and challenges our perception of all that we know, which Mentz claims is a good thing. The fourth word Mentz brings up is ship (formerly state). Here he writes, “The dissolving force of oceanic history works against nationalism, though at times it may also tend in the directions of global or even imperial totality.” Mentz is saying that unlike a majority of nations, ships are one place were unity and equality is truly real. Our politics should should no longer be focused on the ideas of state, but rather ship – “trading, fighting, hailing, sighting” as Mentz writes. In his fifth word, Mentz proposes the idea of seascape (formerly landscape). He questions whether our language is too visual, and says that underwater creatures don’t necessarily need to rely on sight as much as we do. The sixth change Mentz offers is distortion (formerly clarity). Distortion is important, it changes how we view things and how we think of things. It can allow for us to rely on ourselves and our own knowledge rather than what we see in front of us. His seventh and final word is horizon (formerly horizon). Here Mentz talks about how the horizon is a place where new things become visible. The horizon is important in life, it’ll always be there, offer new ideas and changes. Mentz’s changes on these seven words offer us a new perspective on life, our lives are parallel to water and we must be reminded of that.

Week 4: Idea of the Workforce to Cultural Imagination

Posted on by
5

One part of the reading that stuck out to me this week was the idea that as the sea becomes less relevant to the workforce, it becomes bigger in the cultural imagination. This is such a transition of thought, and maybe why we have more environmental awareness about the ocean. Instead of using the ocean as something for profit and to sustain ourselves, it becomes a cultural idea, and as it becomes personified, we feel more reason to protect it. As we create this cultural idea/fact that the ocean is alive, we can also see this idea of it being helpless, and want to protect it. Similar to a puppy, maybe. 

Gillis brought up this idea of the growing cultural imagination in the context of how the humanities shape our knowledge of the ocean. Right now, I think the ocean is such a signifier of wealth. Real estate properties are higher by the ocean, and it is considered a luxury to be able to go to the beach. I don’t know if this holds true everywhere, though. In Japan, not all of the coast was as valued as living in a big city, like Tokyo. I would be interested in exploring what differences there might be in the value of the ocean in the US versus Japan. In California, anywhere on the coast is expensive and valuable, but I went to plenty of coastlines in Japan that weren’t populated or seemingly expensive. How we view something and the cultural value we place on it is simply that.

I also think it should be noted that our idea of the ocean in the cultural imagination is so limited. When we think of going to the ocean, it is simply to go to the seashore, maybe dip our bodies in for a few minutes. When the ocean was more relevant to the workforce, thoughts of the ocean must’ve been so different. I doubt many thought of white sandy beaches; rather ports with large ships and months of journey.