Sea Voyage Narratives

This paper comprehensively examines sea fiction as world literature from the theoretical perspectives of Franco Moretti and David Damrosch by exploring how it qualifies as world literature through the lens of their theories, highlighting the genre's global circulation, evolution and representation of both universal and local experiences. The research begins with a comparative analysis of Damrosch's and Moretti's approaches to world literature, as the former's focus on the transnational circulation of literature provides a foundation for understanding how sea fiction has transcended cultural boundaries, while the latter's emphasis on the diffusion and transformation of literary forms illuminates the genre's evolution and global reach. The paper explores sea fiction's manifestation as a global genre, employing Moretti's concept of distant reading to analyse large-scale trends. In addition, the study investigates the influence of sea fiction on postcolonial and postmodern rewritings, demonstrating how the genre's main themes and narratives have been adapted and reframed in contemporary world literature. The translations and global circulation of classical sea fiction are examined as critical factors that have facilitated their evolution from national and regional narratives into integral components of the world literature system. In conclusion, sea fiction is presented as a microcosm of the broader world literature system. Its interplay with world literature and global genres offers a rich field for future literary studies. The findings of this research paper underscore the enduring relevance of sea fiction in the literary field and its significant role in fostering a mutual literary journey transcending cultural and geographical boundaries.

This article presents a micro-spatial study of the trajectories of two prison breakers in 18 th-century Denmark-Norway reconstructed from court documents and interrogations. Both men escaped multiple times from institutions known as slaveries ('slaverier')-convict labour institutions run by the army. Their repeated ights tie their stories to multiple circuits of labour and the practices of immobilization and coercion on which they rested. Thus, the article argues that the runaway can serve a contextualizing social history of coercion as a heuristic tool because the runaway moves both within, against and between regimes of immobilization, and in doing so shows us workable (and sometimes unworkable) pathways at speci c historical junctures. The article proposes the concept of runaway heuristics to capture how following the itineraries of runaways can help us trace entangled processes of labour coercion, but can also serve in a less systematic, but no less useful, way to reveal highly situated dynamics, sometimes singular and often unexpectedly contradictory. The latter dimension highlights the need to think through a variety of disparate elements that shaped the individual trajectory, including the physical surroundings through which escapees moved, and their accumulated knowledge of those surroundings.

In 1683 the fragile Danish Atlantic was shaken by a mutiny orchestrated by a coalition of common sailors and convicts. On the way to St. Thomas in the Caribbean, they seized the ship, Havmanden, and killed their superiors. Among the dead was the newly appointed governor of St. Thomas, Jørgen Iversen. He was a veteran of Atlantic colonization and had been the governor of the Caribbean colony from its foundation in 1672 to 1680. In his absence the colony had devolved into a pirate's nest, and the Danish West India and Guinea Company hoped that his experience and authority could once again bring their small empire back on track. Instead, the mutiny further weakened their grasp on their Caribbean colony. In the night before the mutiny, the governor had attempted to quell the simmering disgruntlements on the ship by promising the convicts that he would treat them well when they reached the colony. However, they heard his promise as a threat. This article explores this discrepancy and places it in the context of circulating stories and rumours of violence, exploitation and death in the Caribbean. In exploring the contours of such storytelling felt only indirectly in the fragmented archival trail, this genealogy of a single speech act, in turn, raises questions about the role of speech in the making and unmaking of seventeenth-century Atlantic empires.

Jessica Güsken »Yes, Sir« Konformieren, Verschwinden und Erzählen in B. Travens Das Totenschiff »Das Totenschiff«, so hat es B. Traven 1926 den Lesern seines gleichnamigen Romans erklärt, »ist ein Schiff, das von Toten, von Gespenstern bemannt ist. Die Toten atmen und arbeiten, sind aber dennoch tot. Tot, wie nur ein Mensch sein kann, der keine Verbindung mehr mit den Lebenden und der lebendigen Welt hat«. 1 Anders als es hier klingt, gehört dieser Roman eigentlich nicht ins Genre phantastischer Schauerliteratur. Vielmehr wird, wie schon der Untertitel dieses in der gewerkschaftlich organisierten Büchergilde Gutenberg publizierten Buchs verspricht, die Geschichte eines amerikanischen Seemanns erzählt. Wie der Ich-Erzähler allerdings gleich zu Beginn klarmacht, erwartet die Leser nun keine jener »verlogenen Seegeschichten«, in denen allein »Kapitäne und Steuerleute« eine Rolle spielen und die zumal eine »Romantik« des Lebens zur See entworfen hätten, die »lediglich in der Phantasie der Schreiber jener Seegeschichten [bestand]«. 2 Dagegen nimmt er für seine Seegeschichte sehr viel handgreiflichere Erfahrungen und eine besondere Wahrhaftigkeit seiner Rede in Anspruch, die nicht von der Kommandobrücke, sondern einer inferioren Position ergeht und von weniger romantischen als vielmehr »brutal[en]« (12) Verhältnissen zu berichten weiß.

В статье исследуется историографическая дискуссия, развернувшаяся уже в наше время вокруг плавания капитана Гоннвиля 1503–1505 гг. Со второй половины XIX в. отчёт об этом путешествии стал считаться первым документальным свидетельством плавания французов в Бразилию. Однако на рубеже ХХ-XXI вв. были высказаны сомнения в подлинности отчёта, вызвавшие резкое неприятие приверженцев прежней концепции. В статье показаны как развитие дискуссии во времени с вовлечением в неё всё новых специалистов из разных областей гуманитарных наук, так и основные аргументы и контр-аргументы в споре вокруг капитана Гоннвиля и его крестника индейца Эссомерика, то ли существовавших на самом деле, то ли явившихся плодом мистификации второй половины XVII в.
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The paper analyses a discussion among historians that took place nowadays in reference to the captain Gonneville’s expedition of 1503–1505. Since the second half of the XIXth century the report of this trip (a declaration made on demand of the Rouen Admiralty) was considered the first documentary evidence of the French expeditions to Brazil. However, at the turn of the XXth and XXIst centuries some doubts were expressed regarding the authenticity of the document. The paper shows how the discussion evaluated and how it involved new participants from different branches of the humanities. The paper presents the main arguments and counter arguments in the “Captain Gonneville and his godson Essomericq debate”, whether they did exist, or appeared as a fruit of the later mystification (second half of the XVII th century).

This book explores the concept of school belonging in adolescents from a socio-ecological perspective, acknowledging that young people are uniquely connected to a broad network of groups and systems within a school system. Using a socio-ecological framework, it positions belonging as an essential aspect of psychological functioning for which schools offer unique opportunities to improve. It also offers insights into the factors that influence school belonging at the student level during adolescence in educational settings. Taking a socio-ecological perspective and drawing from innovative research methods, the book encourages researchers interested in school leadership to foster students' sense of belonging by developing their qualities and by changing school systems and processes

The sea voyage, especially through open-water, was considered one of the most dangerous modes of travel during the Middle Ages due to unpredictable forces of nature and the numerous marvels (MHG wunder) that could be expected. This article explores medieval literary texts devoted to the seafaring Saint Brendan (German Brandan), focusing on the various forms and meanings of the sea and of water as well as their semantic shifts over time. For instance, the notion of the sea as a symbolic space filled with salvific history prevails in the Latin ‘Navigatio sancti Brendani abbatis’, initially written for a monastic audience. The exemplary abbot Brendan can be viewed as having transcended the perils of this space. By contrast, a further concept emerges in vernacular versions, especially in the German ‘Reise’. Coincidence (contingentia) seems to dominate providence (providentia) within the narrative manifested in the repentant sinner Brendan who occasionally even fears the wonders and force of the sea.

This book explores the experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans (LGBT) communities as victims, offenders and staff within the criminal justice system. It draws on both emerging and existing LGBT research and campaigns to identify and explore issues relevant to the criminal justice system, including: agencies of the criminal justice system, victimisation, domestic violence and abuse, transgender experiences, LGBT people as offenders, international perspectives and the personal experiences of LGBT people. Charlotte Knight and Kath Wilson trace the legislative journey toward equal treatment before and after the Wolfenden Report. They consider why, for example, lesbians are over represented on death row in the US, how the prosecution characterises them and what part homophobia might play in offending and in sentencing. They raise important questions about the causes of, and responses to, same-sex domestic violence and abuse and how the system delivers justice to trans people. Sodomy laws and the treatment of LGBT people worldwide are also considered and models of good practice are offered. Their insights will be of interest to practitioners, policy makers and scholars of the criminal justice system, particularly those concerned with the rights of LGBT communities. Charlotte Knight is an Associate Researcher at De Montfort University, UK. She established the Division of Community and Criminal Justice, which delivers probation and police programmes, and applied criminology degrees. Research interests include emotional literacy, diversity, probation curricula and evaluation practice in Europe. She has published Emotional Literacy in Criminal Justice (2014). Kath Wilson is a Senior Lecturer and leads the probation programme at De Montfort University, UK. Previously a probation officer, she teaches mainly around issues of values, diversity and offender management within the criminal justice system, particularly in relation to probation and policing.

A study of some of the medieval versions of the Jason and Medea legend that begins with a review of the classical sources, Dares and Benoit de Sainte-Maure, Guido delle Colonne (and other versions of Italian origin), Alfonso X and related titles, the Ovide moralisé, and ends with works connected with the Burgundian court.

Two Spanish works bracket the early period of Spanish exploration, conquest, and settlement spanning about a hundred years. Columbus's Diario de abordo (1492) is a factual account of the first voyage to America, while Cervantes's Los trabajos de Persiles y Sigismunda (l6l7) is a fictional account of a pilgrimage to Rome. Both texts describe ships and their journeys to and from islands, and both contain accounts of storms at sea and shipwreck. But the texts differ in their use of chronology, and the ways they describe and resolve situations that occur during the voyage. The two vastly different narrative styles arise not only from the different genres to which they belong, but from the writers' perceptions of the universe and their protagonists' places in it. This paper analyzes these differences through the use of language describing time, ships, and sailing.

This article is an attempt to look at the practices and discourses of
gendering the body within the site of a particular dance form—Mohiniyattam.
Mohiniyattam is considered to be the classical dance form of women of Kerala.
It is understood as a ‘feminine’ or lasya style of dance, based on its use of body
movements. Currently, Mohiniyattam is being represented as the heightened version of the ideal Kerala/Malayalee woman’s identity and femininity through tourism advertisements, films and other popular representations. This article traces the
process of gendering which had gone into the reinvention of Mohiniyattam in the
1930s. It tries to see whether the reinvention of Mohiniyattam was a reimagining
and refashioning of the Malayalee woman’s identity. It also reads how training
the body for a dance form overlaps with instructions for disciplining the female
body to be ideally feminine. It is interesting to see how Mohiniyattam produces,
defines and sustains a gender ideal for a regional feminine identity through bodily
practices. The effort is to see how the dancer’s body and her movements are constructed, and how it spills over into the shaping of female bodies within a particular culture and history.
Keywords Mohiniyattam · Invention of Tradition · Constructed femininity ·
Vallathol Narayana Menon · Performativity · Dance · Gender

The revival in contemporary fiction of the sea voyage of exploration as a subject must be seen in conjunction with postmodern attempts to overcome exhausted literary conventions. Voyages into time and space are functionalized for aesthetic, philosophical, and epistemological reflection, quests that result in a critical reworking of the archetypal seafaring tale. Umberto Eco's L'isola del giorno prima and Christoph Ransmayr's Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis exemplify two different postmodern strategies: while Eco employs ironic and playful, largely intraliterary, self-reflexivity, Ransmayr focuses on the relationship between history and fiction, as well as the representation of historiographic metafiction.

Remmington provides a rich analysis of black South African journalist Solomon Plaatje’s under-studied sea narrative written en route to imperial London as part of the African National Congress’s 1914 deputation to protest against the Natives’ Land Act. The chapter, drawing in part on Gilroyan and Foucauldian conceptualisations, examines Plaatje’s figuring of the open seascape, the integrated ship and an idealised cosmopolitan destination as symbolic of freedoms across colour lines against the backdrop of South Africa’s increasingly racially constrained socio-political landscape. It explores Plaatje’s navigation through the darker historical and metaphorical territory of the ocean—slavery, colonial conquest and shipwrecks—and his negotiation of maritime domains claimed by white mastery—management of seasickness, time and travel. Published in South African newspapers, the narrative situates Plaatje’s maritime journey as part of a larger mission for African rights at home and within the imaginary of a ‘world empire’.

La Biblioteca Nacional de España cuenta con un ejemplar de la obra de Antonio Pigafetta titulada Il viaggio fatto da gli spagniuoli a torno a'l mondo, publicado en Venecia en 1536 por L. A. Giunta, referenciado como Edit 16, CNCE 73425 y formado por 104 páginas. Se trata, a mi parecer, de una obra de extraordinaria importancia, no sólo en cuanto su propia calidad y antigüedad, como uno de los fondos más importantes que tratan sobre la expedición de Magallanes, sino también, precisamente porque se trata del relato del cronista de la expedición que, a la postre, se convertiría en la primera en dar la vuelta al mundo en un momento en que acababa de descubrirse que era posible, y llevada a cabo bajo los auspicios de la Corona Española, con el consecuente prestigio imperecedero que para ésta y sus protagonistas reportaría a lo largo de la Historia.