Oceanic Becoming: The Pacific Beneath the Pavements

From disappearing coral reefs and ocean acidification to floating great garbage patches, the Pacific Ocean is an ever-present reminder of the Anthropocene. In Oceanic Becoming, Rob Wilson demonstrates that in the midst of the planetary crises the Pacific now faces, it must be understood as interconnected to the other oceans. Wilson frames this interconnection as ＂Oceania,＂ reconceiving the world oceans as tied to sites of urban dwelling and life sustenance--from Boston to Brisbane--that are increasingly threatened by late capitalism. Confronting these threats, Wilson argues, requires a project he theorizes as ＂worlding＂--a process of world-making and world-remaking across Oceania that would create new forms of belonging and connection at local, regional, and transnational levels. Wilson shows how Oceania is not just a site of peril but one charged with emergent literary and social formations that can provide the basis for new solidarities, futures, and ecologies.

Rob Wilson is Professor of Literature, Creative Writing, and Cultural Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He is the author of, among other books, Reimagining the American Pacific: From South Pacific to Bamboo Ridge and Beyond, also published by Duke University Press, and Be Always Converting, Be Always Converted: An American Poetics.