Abstracts of up to 250 words invited for following session for
Association of Art Historians Annual Conference 2011:

Representations of the Ocean as a Social Space
Convenor: Tricia Cusack (University of Birmingham); triciacusackgmail.com

Before the eighteenth century the sea was regarded in the West as a
fearsome, repulsive and chaotic deep (Corbin, 1988). Subsequently with
the emergence of the notion of the sublime, then the invention of the
seaside and the practice of leisure boating, it was recast as a zone of
wonder and pleasure. However Western conceptions of the ocean continued
to view it predominantly as 'empty space' although a space available for
exploration and appropriation. Thus British Empire Marketing Board
posters in the 1920s mapped imperial possessions and depicted ocean
liners under the caption 'Highways of Empire' thereby appropriating -
and socialising - sea passages radiating from centre to colonies. Ships
themselves present microcosmic societies circumscribed and shaped by the
ocean.

Imaginings of the sea vary depending on place, time, and culture. For
example Australian Aboriginal 'Dreaming Paths' do not distinguish
between land and water, continuing from shore into the sea. In
post-independence Ireland artists painted contrasting visions of the
Atlantic as a Celtic dreamscape with magic islands, or as the emigrant's
route to America. The sea in many cultures has been gendered as female
and viewed as a resource subject to masculine domestication and
exploitation.

Contributions are invited that analyse the ocean as a social space, with
reference to painting, illustration, maps, or other forms of visual
representation. Papers may focus for example on the ocean surface or its
deeps, on tropical or frozen seas; on representations of sea monsters,
mermaids, seafaring, fishing, colonial or national exploitation and
appropriation, slaving, cultures of travel, exploration, emigration or
leisure.