A nice new issue of Coriolis is out, with a trio of articles on the state-0f-the-field in maritime and Atlantic World history. The three authors — Josh Smith of the Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point, NY; Kelly Chaves, a doctoral candidate at the University of New Brunswick; and Lincoln Paine, independent scholar and editor — make a nice survey of recent developments in maritime history, including dust-ups about how new the “new thalassologists” really are, how imperial and Anglophone the Atlantic World still is, and how much ethnohistory and especially the history of Native American cultures might add to our maritime world-views. All three authors build on Paul Cohen’s great 2008 article, “Was there an Amerindian Atlantic?”
References to literary matters are somewhat scattered, though Hester Blum gets respectful citation and I get a quick shout-out alongside the great Mary K. Bercaw-Edwards. Makes me wonder if a more sustained hashing out of literary-cultural-historical matters might shed light on a few things, including the bifurcated status of the ocean as preeminent symbol and structuring physical reality of the global era. But that’s for later, or maybe for the maritime panel I’m organizing for the JCB’s 50th anniversary panel this coming June.
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