Steve Mentz

THE BOOKFISH

THALASSOLOGY, SHAKESPEARE, AND SWIMMING

  • Home
  • Steve Mentz
  • Humanities Commons
  • Public Writing
  • The sea! the sea!
  • The Bookfish
  • St. Johns

BABEL 2014 Preview: Heading to the Beach in Santa Barbara

October 11, 2014 by Steve Mentz 1 Comment

babel_biennale_2014I leave for the West Coast on Wed afternoon, just in time for the voracious whirlpool of BABEL 2016. Whenever I browse through the overflowing program I find something new I’m looking forward to: art installations! rooftop parties! epigraphs from Moby-Dick!

Having not been able to resist the wonders of the Calls for Papers, I’m going to speak five (!) times over the three days of the conference. I’ll be brief, don’t worry.

Here are some previews of the flood.

Thursday morning early I’m heading into the surf with some brave souls and neoprene as an immersive preamble to my 9:30 am Plenary talk, “Bodysurfing.” The talk will start with two mantras to guide my surf-theory and my BABEL-ing:

1. Experience is better than knowledge. (Samuel Champlain)

2. Everything is allegorical.

The next day I’ll meet the Material Collective just after noon for a Walk on Goleta Beach on the UCSB campus, which will lead into our double-session seminar/flash exhibition/presentation. A little piece of the CT Shoreline will travel with me.

I’m also going to serve as designated Flanuer for a 3:30 pm panel that afternoon on “Coastal Creatures,” which sounds excellent.

At 5 pm on Fri, I’m part of the overflowing SCALE Plenary session. My talk, “Ocean,” flows over 40,000km in just four minutes.

The hard thing about this thinking is scale. The great waters are too big, too close, and too flowing to hold in hand or mind. We have no whale’s throat to swallow them whole.

Saturday at 2 pm I’m chairing Justin Kolb’s panel, “Sous les paves, la plage!” — under the pavement, the beach! He’s kindly let me adapt his great CFP for my intro. He describes arriving in Cairo in May 2013 when the square was a beach.

When Tahrir Square became beach, its traffic circle was a vibrant democratic assembly, with possibilities and vulnerabilities that attend life on the edge of the world.

Last of all I’m contributing seven vocabulary words to Ellen MacKay and Jody Enders’s “Sea Changes” session on Saturday afternoon.

What if all our talking hasn’t been oceanic enough? I want to change our grounded terrestrial metaphors. What happens if we swap out terrestrial language for salt-water terms?

That doesn’t include plans for immersive adventures, breakfast Saturday with one of my favorite friends, plus hearing and seeing so many great-sounding talks and exhibitions that I don’t have space to list them here.

Flying home on Sunday morning I’m going to be pretty tired.

 

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Comments

  1. J J Cohen says

    October 11, 2014 at 9:43 am

    My plane leave at 5:45 AM Sunday so I’ve already decided not to go to bed Saturday night. It will be a great conference Steve and I’m looking forward to hanging out with you there!

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

About Steve

Steve Mentz
Professor of English
St. John’s University
Read Bio

Twitter Feed

Steve MentzFollow

Steve Mentz
stevermentzSteve Mentz@stevermentz·
25 Jan

Walks in the winter woods in early 2021 have taken me through two big climate books that have a funhouse mirror reflective quality. First I devoured KSR's latest doorstopper, a hopeful vision of global eco-response.

https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/kim-stanley-robinson/the-ministry-for-the-future/9780316300162/

Reply on Twitter 1353825082460811266Retweet on Twitter 13538250824608112661Like on Twitter 13538250824608112665Twitter 1353825082460811266
stevermentzSteve Mentz@stevermentz·
25 Jan

Fascinating article about Drexciya & the need to memorialize remember the transoceanic slave trade #bluehumanities

Reply on Twitter 1353752897570418688Retweet on Twitter 1353752897570418688Like on Twitter 13537528975704186882Twitter 1353752897570418688
Load More...

Pages

  • OCEAN Publicity
  • #SAA 2020: Watery Thinking
  • Creating Nature: May 2019 at the Folger
  • Audio and Video Recordings
  • Oceanic New York
  • Public Writing
  • Published Work
  • #pluralizetheanthropocene

Recent Posts

  • Blue Humanities
  • Bookfish in 2020
  • Writing in 2020
  • Reads of 2020
  • Vineland Reread by Peter Coviello

Copyright © 2021 · News Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in