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Shipwreck Modernity!

December 10, 2015 by Steve Mentz Leave a Comment

2015-12-10 07.55.13

Shipwreck on a desk

I’ve been thinking that if the first copies of Shipwreck Modernity arrived in Short Beach a day too late to travel with me to this Saturday’s “Gardenwrecks” event with Patrick Mahon at the Katzman Contemporary gallery in Toronto, the near-miss would match the shipwreck experience. It’s all about timing, whether you hit the rocks or the beach.

But it’s here today! So many years and voyages and thoughts and conversations pressed between two covers.

I wonder what people will think of it? It’s a strange fish, as academic books go.

The history of #ecologicalglobalization rewrites exploration as hazard, discovery as error, New Worlds as unfathomable seas. What if inside all our stories of supposed modernity shipwreck lurks, waiting?

Nonsuch Garden, by Patrick Mahon at the Katzman Contemporary

Nonsuch Garden, by Patrick Mahon at the Katzman Contemporary

The book supplements the blue humanities with three more specific terms about which I might blog more later:

Wet Globalization

Blue Ecology

Shipwreck Modernity

But like all books it’s a not altogether dead thing that carries out into the world ocean bits and pieces of me, assembled with syntax, coincidence, and the great good fortune of so many helping hands, ears, and voices along the way.

Thanks to everyone who’s listened and talked back during the shipwreck years. I’m looking forward to the next stage of the voyage!

Shipwreck with ship

Shipwreck with ship

 

 

 

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About Steve

Steve Mentz
Professor of English
St. John’s University
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Pages

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  • OCEAN Publicity
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  • #shax2022 s31: Rethinking the Early Modern Literary Caribbbean
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Recent Posts

  • The Wife of Willesden (BAM)
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  • BBQ on Will’s Birthday (Fat Ham on Broadway)
  • The Knight of the Burning Pestle (Fiasco/Red Bull)
  • Snow in the North Country: #shax2023

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