Course Schedule and Catalog
Course Schedule - Spring Semester 2026
Meeting location information can now be found on student schedules in ESTHER (for students) or on the Course Roster in ESTHER (for faculty and instructors).Additional information available here.
Meeting location information can now be found on student schedules in ESTHER (for students) or on the Course Roster in ESTHER (for faculty and instructors).Additional information available here.
ENST 318 001 (CRN: 25683)
LIFE AQUATIC
Long Title: LIFE AQUATIC: WATER CULTURES AND BLUE HUMANITIES
Department: Environmental Studies
Instructor: Potts, Rebecca
Meeting: 4:00PM - 5:15PM TR (12-JAN-2026 - 24-APR-2026)
Part of Term: Full Term
Grade Mode: Standard Letter
Course Type: Seminar
Language of Instruction: Taught in English
Method of Instruction: Face to Face
Credit Hours: 3
Course Syllabus:
Course Materials: Rice Campus Store
Restrictions:
Must be enrolled in one of the following Level(s):
Undergraduate Professional
Visiting Undergraduate
Undergraduate
Section Max Enrollment: 30
Section Enrolled: 1
Waitlisted: 0 (Max 99)
Current members of the waitlist have priority for available seats.
Enrollment data as of: 24-NOV-2025 5:19PM
Final Exam: No Final Exam
Description: Material and Metaphor. Destruction, Purification, Gestation. Hydrogen Hydroxide. Formless Chaos, Lifegiving Force. With what words, methods, and infrastructures do humans attempt to describe and contain water? How do the physical properties, geographies, and movements of water shape the (non)human social and sublime? In thinking together with scholars of gender fluidity, the Black Atlantic, chaotic feminine, flooding cities, cathartic oceans, (anti)colonial territory, plastic islands, and liquid capital, this course will provide students with a solid grounding in the shifting tides of the Blue Humanities—sometimes called “critical ocean studies.” While seawater flows throughout the texts and topics of the semester, the course is equally interested in those waters that trickle outside the boundaries of the bodies named Ocean. This course wades between the porous and co-constitutive borders of human bodies, bodies of water, and the body politic.