- the sea as traumatic rupture and transformational change, confinement and freedom;
- the sea as ecology in a time of climate change and 'blue economies';
- what it means to think about the affect of the 'forms and forces' of the sea; and
- what pedagogical lessons may be drawn from the sea to think beyond the sea.
Sunset over rough water of Baltic Sea seen from a tourist boat in Leba town, Poland
The one-day symposium will include morning presentations and an afternoon keynote. The morning presentations will take place from 9:30 a.m. to 2:45 p.m. and will be given by York University faculty members and guest presenters. Those presenting include: Othon Alexandrakis, Katherine Anderson, Tyler Ball, Arun Chaudhuri, Andrea Davis, Ken Little, Andrea Madovarski, Patrick Taylor, Sandra Widmer, Anna Zalik, Rinaldo Walcott and Yutaka Yoshida. The conference convenor is York Professor Daniel Yon.
The keynote presentation will be delivered from 3 to 4:30 p.m.
Isabel Hormeyr
Titled "Pedagogies of the Sea: hydrocolonial perspectives," the keynote will be delivered by Professor Isabel Hofmeyr of the WITS University in Johannesburg, South Africa. Hofmeyr is also a Global Distinguished Professor at New York University, U.S.
Hofmeyr's presentation will focus on how rising sea levels have shifted the ways in which we do oceanic studies. Whereas older styles of oceanic histories treated the sea as surface and backdrop for human movement at sea, a new oceanic studies seeks to engage with the materiality of the ocean, attempting analytically to go off shore and below the water line. This scholarship seeks to make visible the deep-seated land- and human-orientations of much research. Terming these “dry technologies”, this work seeks to “immerse” concepts and theories to produce new modes of analysis. Using the rubric of hydrocolonialism, this talk will outline a range of emerging methods and techniques, exploring how these might be employed as pedagogies of the sea.
The event is co-sponsored by the Office of the Vice-President Research, the Faculty of Environmental Studies, and the Departments of Anthropology and Humanities in the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies.
The symposium runs in Room 305, Founders College and is open to all. For more information including descriptions of the morning presentations, view the symposium program.