Oceans

Utopian literatures and utopian thoughts have always manifested complex and intimate relations with oceans. Seawater carries ships, passengers, and cargoes to so-called “new” lands and ferries feelings, imaginations, and metaphors toward the horizons of the known. Maritime movements are among the more utopian energies in existence. At the same time, waters are not places (topoi) fit for human habitation—however closely we may live with them, we cannot long survive in them—and their activity will always elude anthropic projection and control. If this implies that oceanic utopia always entails an irresolvable contradiction, that contradiction only highlights the suitability of seas for utopian imaginings. Utopia’s original meaning is, after all, “non-place,” and the meaning of place is perhaps never so insoluble as it is on, and under, the waves. This chapter provides a brief analysis of currents in (mostly) Western histories of aquatopic literature, paying special attention to the displacing nature of voyaging and the imbrications of marine utopism and imperialism. It considers the unique status of the undersea for marine conjuring; the depths host histories, lives, processes, and possibilities that may prove aesthetically and ethically salubrious for navigating our oceanic future.