Is a River Alive?

How the Maritime World made the West

With sail came trade—and with trade came connection between cultures. When did that begin in the West? In this episode we go to ancient Mesopotamia, the Levant, Egypt, and the islands of the Mediterranean; we learn about the Phoenicians (who didn’t call themselves Phoenicians); we set sail with Odysseus; and Carthage meets Rome. Josephine Quinn, the first woman to hold the distinguished Professorship of Ancient History at Cambridge University, joins host Jonathan Bate to talk about the maritime dimensions of her bestselling book How the World made the West: A Four Thousand Year History [https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/736806/how-the-world-made-the-west-by-josephine-quinn/]. You can follow Jonathan on Twitter/X here [https://twitter.com/profbate] and the Humanities Institute here [https://twitter.com/HumIt_ASU]. For more on ASU's Blue Humanities Initiative, follow this link [https://humanitiesinstitute.asu.edu/blue-humanities]. New episodes featuring leading scholars will be uploaded regularly. This episode was edited by Dave Waugh at Scrubcast [https://www.scrubcast.com/]. Music: from Claude Debussy, La Mer (rights-free recording).

Is a River Alive?

In this episode of the Blue Humanities podcast, we turn from the oceans to the rivers that feed the sea. Host Jonathan Bate joins Britain’s leading writer of the natural world, Robert Macfarlane [Robert%20Macfarlane%20(writer)%20%20Wikipedia%20https:/en.wikipedia.org%20›%20wiki%20›%20Robert_Macfarlane_(w...], to discuss his new book Is a River Alive? [https://www.penguin.co.uk/authors/32424/robert-macfarlane] Their discussion ranges from the “Rights of Nature” movement to Macfarlane’s breathtaking journeys along great rivers in Ecuador, India and Canada, where he immerses himself in wonders and meets activists who are striving to save the rivers that are the arteries of life on earth.  You can follow Jonathan on Twitter/X here [https://twitter.com/profbate] and the Humanities Institute here [https://twitter.com/HumIt_ASU]. For more on ASU's Blue Humanities Initiative, follow this link [https://humanitiesinstitute.asu.edu/blue-humanities]. New episodes featuring leading scholars will be uploaded regularly. This episode was edited by Dave Waugh at Scrubcast [https://www.scrubcast.com/]. Music: from Claude Debussy, La Mer (rights-free recording).

Oceanic Histories

When, why and in what ways did modern historians turn their attention to oceanic encounters and crossings? In this episode of the Blue Humanities podcast, presenter Jonathan Bate talks to David Armitage [https://armitage.scholars.harvard.edu/], Lloyd Blankfein Professor of History at Harvard University, about the Atlantic and Pacific turns in historiography. Professor Armitage has written, edited and contributed to many books in the field, including The British Atlantic World [https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/british-atlantic-world-15001800-9781137013415/](2002, 2009), Essays in Atlantic History [https://www.routledge.com/Greater-Britain-1516-1776-Essays-in-Atlantic-History/Armitage/p/book/9780860789420?srsltid=AfmBOooXNxY22khjxw7vxSR0BB63DXWf9fCy7zlS0sBUlzJ-cM85a9HD] (2004), Pacific Histories [https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/pacific-histories-9781137001634/](2014) and, most recently, Oceanic Japan: The Archipelago in Pacific and Global History [https://uhpress.hawaii.edu/title/oceanic-japan-the-archipelago-in-pacific-and-global-history/] (University of Hawai’i Press, 2025). Their discussion ranges from the extinction of the Steller’s sea cow to a floating operatic stage featured in the James Bond film Quantum of Solace.  You can follow Jonathan on Twitter/X here [https://twitter.com/profbate] and the Humanities Institute here [https://twitter.com/HumIt_ASU]. For more on ASU's Blue Humanities Initiative, follow this link [https://humanitiesinstitute.asu.edu/blue-humanities]. New episodes featuring leading scholars will be uploaded regularly. This episode was edited by Dave Waugh at Scrubcast [https://www.scrubcast.com/]. Music: from Claude Debussy, La Mer (rights-free recording).

Deepwater Alchemy

How do we imagine the ocean bed? Who owns the sea floor? What does our obsession with shipwrecks such as the Titanic tell us about ourselves? What is the history of the deepwater extractive economy? And its future? In this episode of the Blue Humanities podcast, Jonathan Bate talks to Lisa Han, Assistant Professor of Media Studies at Pitzer College about her new book, Deepwater Alchemy: Extractive Mediation and the Taming of the Seafloor [https://www.upress.umn.edu/9781517915940/deepwater-alchemy/] (University of Minnesota Press), in which we learn how media of various kinds - photography, sonar, mapping - have shaped our understanding of the depths of the oceans. You can follow Jonathan on Twitter/X here [https://twitter.com/profbate] and the Humanities Institute here [https://twitter.com/HumIt_ASU]. For more on ASU's Blue Humanities Initiative, follow this link [https://humanitiesinstitute.asu.edu/blue-humanities]. New episodes featuring leading scholars will be uploaded regularly. This episode was edited by Dave Waugh at Scrubcast [https://www.scrubcast.com/]. Music: from Claude Debussy, La Mer (rights-free recording).

Shakespeare and the Sea

“There are some who are oceanic in effect,” pronounced Victor Hugo with regard to Shakespeare. “As for the sea, it thunders in passage after Shakespearian passage, and is indeed Shakespeare’s main poetic symbol, its roughness especially being used over and over again to impress on us a sense of man’s turbulent existence,” wrote the critic G. Wilson Knight. In the first of a series of five new Blue Humanities podcasts, Jonathan Bate talks to Professor Peter Womack about his new book Shakespeare, The Sea and the Stage [https://www.amazon.com/Shakespeare-Edinburgh-Critical-Studies-Renaissance/dp/1399539493/] (Edinburgh University Press), a lively study that places Shakespeare in the context of his own maritime moment, but also shows how his language of sea and ocean roars through the ages. You can follow Jonathan on Twitter/X here [https://twitter.com/profbate] and the Humanities Institute here [https://twitter.com/HumIt_ASU]. For more on ASU's Blue Humanities Initiative, follow this link [https://humanitiesinstitute.asu.edu/blue-humanities]. New episodes featuring leading scholars will be uploaded regularly. This episode was edited by Dave Waugh at Scrubcast [https://www.scrubcast.com/]. Music: from Claude Debussy, La Mer (rights-free recording).