Ocean (Object Lessons) - Softcover

Mentz, Steve

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1501348639 ISBN 13: 9781501348631

Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic, 2020

Synopsis

Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.

The ocean comprises the largest object on our planet. Retelling human history from an oceanic rather than terrestrial point of view unsettles our relationship with the natural environment. Our engagement with the world's oceans can be destructive, as with today's deluge of plastic trash and acidification, but the mismatch between small bodies and vast seas also emphasizes the frailty and resilience of human experience.

From ancient stories of shipwrecked sailors to the containerized future of 21st-century commerce, Ocean splashes the histories we thought we knew into salty and unfamiliar places.

Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic.

About this title

About the Authors

Steve Mentz is Professor of English at St John's University, USA. He is the author of seven books, most recently Sailing without Ahab (2024) and An Introduction to the Blue Humanities (2023), as well as multiple edited volumes, chapters, and journal articles. His research has been supported by the Rachel Carson Center, the Folger Shakespeare Library, the John Carter Brown Library, Mystic Seaport, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the National Maritime Museum in London.

Ian Bogost is an author and an award-winning game designer. He is Barbara and David Thomas Distinguished Professor in Arts & Sciences, Director of Film & Media Studies, and Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis. Bogost is also Founding Partner at Persuasive Games LLC, an independent game studio, and a Contributing Editor at The Atlantic. Bogost is author or co-author of ten books, including Alien Phenomenology (2012)and Play Anything (2016).

Christopher Schaberg is Director of the Program in Public Scholarship at Washington University in St. Louis, USA, and the author of The Textual Life of Airports (2012), The End of Airports (2015), Airportness (2017), The Work of Literature in an Age of Post-Truth (2018), Searching for the Anthropocene (2019), Pedagogy of the Depressed (2021), and Adventure: An Argument for Limits (2023), all published by Bloomsbury. He is also the founding co-editor (with Ian Bogost) of Bloomsbury's Object Lessons book series.

Edition details

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Publication date: 2020
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1501348639
• ISBN 13: 9781501348631
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 192