Oceanic

Abstract

This entry expands upon the “oceans” entry from the original Keywords issue. In moving from “oceans” to the “oceanic,” I call for a hydrographic remapping of the nineteenth century, offering a new perspective of networked culture, geopolitics, and ecology via maritime circulation and exchange. Noting selected recent projects as examples in this critical turn, I emphasize the stakes, affordances, and challenges of “reading the oceanic.” The oceanic, I contend, is not simply a descriptor of space but rather an active, ideologically charged and theoretically robust mode of representation.