King's College London

Joining the growing domain of blue humanities, my forthcoming book, Underwater Lives: Humans, Species, Oceans brings literary, historical and aesthetic thinking to the oceans seen through human eyes - and their prosthetics, cameras.

When humans became able to stay underwater for more than a breath hold, what did they see, feel and think? How did divers report back from this strange new realm? Reading texts and images together, and sometimes against each other, I use life writing to situate changing relations between humans, other species and the oceans.

Exploring diver memoirs, biographies of other species and aesthetic themes, I establish how life writing interprets ocean life. An original poetry collection accompanies the book.

Photo credit: Cornet fish by Professor Clare Brant