Course Details

This class will explore shadow histories of Seattle area shores and waterways, examining historic maps, oral histories, and on-the-ground legacies of drainage projects. We will visit tribal lands, reflecting on ecocultural politics of fishing, shellfishing, and fisheries management. We will practice close observation of tidal rhythms, and compose odes to the sea, sound, and tides. We will trace buried waterways, gutters, and storm drains of Seattle, and develop an apparatus for investigating hidden flows. We will contemplate post-sea level rise futures in which the city becomes an archipelago. Via shoreline exploration, students will be immersed in their own poetics of relation to area waters. Students will place their own observations into dialog with texts ranging from indigenous and mestiza poetics and queer feminist theory to European explorers’ logs and floodplain engineering documents. We will work on poetic and scientific writing, blueprints, and visual art.