How might we move from terrestrial logics when thinking about the ecological? Blue ecocriticism can offer an answer by turning our attention to the fluid blue of the planet: the ocean, yes, but also, when you think about it, the air. What sorts of insights can blue ecocriticism offer when thinking through the critique of extractivist colonial logics? And when we consider going beyond our own atmosphere, should we not also be mindful of postcolonial insights when thinking about things such as, let’s say, the proposed colonization of Mars?

Further Media:

• Arendt, Hannah. The Origins of Totalitarianism. Translated by M.-I. B. de Launay, Harcourt, 1976.
• Bowie, David. “Life on Mars.” Hunky Dory [Album]. Trident, 1971.
• Boyd, Philip and Chris Vivian. “Should We Fertilize Oceans or Seed Clouds?: No One Knows.” Nature, vol. 570, 2019, pp. 155-157.
• Dobrin, Sidney I. Blue Ecocriticism and the Oceanic Imperative. Routledge, 2021.
• James, C. L. R. Mariners, Renegades, and Castaways: The Story of Herman Melville and the World We Live In. Dartmouth College Press, 1953.
• Siu, Karen. “‘Out of Sight’: Ecological Precarity and Slow Violence in Diasporic Vietnamese Graphic Narratives.” Emergence/y Conference, ASLE 2021 Virtual Conference, 30 July 2021.
• Tsing, Anna. “Keynote Address.” Unnatural Disasters: Climate Change and the Limits of the Knowable [Symposium/Conference], Unit for Criticism & Interpretive Theory, Illini Union, 13 September 2018, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
• Watership Down [Film]. Directed and produced by Martin Rosen, Studio, Nepenthe Films, 1978.