ULTRA MARE: SEA TRAVEL WRITING IN THE FORMATION OF AMERICAN IDENTITY AND LITERARY TRADITION

Panel Chair:

Miriam Fernandez Santiago (Universidad de Granada)

mirfer@ugr.es

Be they soldiers, saints or adventurers, pirates or merchants, runaways or investors, slaves or missionaries; all of them crossed the Atlantic Ocean to reach the mysterious, promised land beyond the limits of the known.   In the way, they met the vastness of the ocean with its many dangers--including sea monsters, mutiny, provisions shortage, sin, divine rage and the rest of threats well established by literary tradition since Homer.   Sea travel writing is often to America, like to many other countries, the record of the heroic origins that a people need to become a nation.   From the Norwegian sagas to Charles Lindbergh 's return flight to London, whether in letter, journal, romance, novel or other formats, the narration of sea journeys is a key element to American identity and literary tradition.   Once the last border of the old world, the Atlantic Ocean became the first border of a new one; the narrative of its crossings runs parallel to the history of the US and the development of its myths.

Suggested topics:

- American sea myths and legends.

- Onboard sermons: messianic perspective, religious leadership, theocratic order.

- Sea journals, letters, diaries and prose narratives in general.

- Triangular slave trade.

- Pirates, buccaneers, and other sea adventurers.

- Onboard discipline and early political order.

- Onboard gender issues.