Marsilius-Brückenseminar „Mensch und Meer“

Humans & Oceans – A Deep Dive into the Blue Humanities

The interaction between human beings and oceans was the central theme of our interdisciplinary seminar “Mensch & Meer” organized by the Marsilius-Kolleg of Heidelberg University in July 2025. Even though the 'turn to the sea' and its cultural practices (‘oceanic turn”) already began in the 1950s with Rachel Carson’s monograph The Sea Around Us (1951), we wanted to discuss the relevance of ‘blue humanities’ (Mentz 2024) in a profound interdisciplinary setting. Together with an engaged group of students and young scholars from a diverse background, we discussed the symbiotic and highly vulnerable relationship between oceans, human and non-human beings from different discipline and with different appraches: Biology (Annika Guse, LMU), Nikolas Jaspert (History, Heidelberg), Friederike Reents (German Studies, Eichstätt) and Ulrike Gerhard (Urban Geography, Heidelberg). The discussion needs to be continued!