“WETLANDS”: Representing and Historicizing Wetland Environments
In the wake of ecocriticism and environmental humanities, the blue humanities have emerged as a field of study that emphasizes the centrality of aquatic environments in understanding interactions between humans and nonhumans. This interdisciplinary field, which initially grew out of Anglophone literary criticism, proposes to shift our terra-centric perspective by adopting the seas and oceans as a new vantage point to rethink our understanding of both the planet and literature (Klein, 2002; Blum, 2008; Bailyn, 2005). Originally developed in the United States within the field of Oceanic studies (Blum 2010; Cohen 2010; Mentz 2009), the “Blue studies” have since expanded and become increasingly decentered and diversified.
