Overview

      In August, 1997, the Ford Foundation awarded Duke University $50,000 under its "Crossing Borders: Revitalizing Area Studies" initiative. This grant was designed to nurture a remapping in international studies: one that would highlight linkages across oceans. Our proposal accordingly sought to supplement the continentally based framework of area studies with a distinctly different overlay, where the earth's major seas would be shifted from the margins to the center of vision.

      We recognized from the outset that to study maritime linkages in a concerted way would require a major reorientation, both of our conceptual frameworks and of our institutional forums. With the generous seed-grant from The Ford Foundation, and matching funds from the university, Duke's program has facilitated that reorientation over the past two academic years, extending the life of "Oceans Connect" beyond the 15-month period of the initial grant. Faculty and students alike have been offered numerous opportunities to focus on trans-oceanic exchanges across five major seas: the Pacific Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean (with its extension in the Caribbean Basin), the Mediterranean Sea, the Black and Caspian Sea nexus, and the Indian Ocean. These conversations have been truly cross-disciplinary in nature. In addition to establishing specific geographically focused groupings, moreover, we were able to support a three-day workshop, bringing together scholars of every world area to debate the critical and curricular issues involved in integrating oceanic with continental perspectives. Finally, a series of course enhancement grants, new course development grants, and student travel awards have encouraged both research and curricular initiatives organized around basins.

      Highlighting trans-oceanic relationships between disparate societies has generated exciting new perspectives on the internal dynamics and identities of world areas at Duke. Rather than simply redrawing area boundaries, this initiative is stimulating a more critical, historical, and relational way of thinking about how the human world is put together.

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Activities Supported Under the Initial Ford Grant

      * Faculty/student working groups on basin research: Five year-long faculty/student reading groups, each focused on a specific basin, constituted the central locus of our project during its first year. The groups include: Atlantic Studies, Eurasian Seas, Indian Ocean, Mediterranean Studies, and Pacific Visions. The size, composition, and interests of these groups were strikingly varied. For instance, the core participants in the Indian Ocean group are half a dozen historians, geographers, and anthropologists; those attending the recently formed Eurasian Seas group have primarily been drawn from environmental and policy studies. The larger Atlantic and Pacific Basin groups have attracted ten to twenty scholars at most meetings, primarily from anthropology, history, and literature, while the Mediterranean group -- our largest -- has consistently drawn a score or more of scholars, primarily from the humanities. Basin-group participants have included both faculty members and graduate students from Duke, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, North Carolina Central University and North Carolina State University. These five working groups have played a crucial role in sounding out the promise of the various oceanic communities as focal points for further initiatives at Duke in the coming years.

      The modest funding allocated to the five basin groups since Fall of 1997 ($1000 per group during the first year, with some increases this year thanks to matching funds from the Duke administration) has allowed all group leaders to copy and distribute readings and to provide meals at their monthly gatherings. In addition, some groups have paid graduate students to serve as note-takers or research assistants; others have hosted guest-speakers from out of town. (Please see Appendix A for a chronology of basin group activities and Appendix B for a list of working group members.)

      * Pedagogical initiatives: A second component of this year-long experiment has been a series of pilot courses on trans-oceanic themes. The Ford grant funded faculty to develop four new undergraduate courses, which focused on connections in a specific basin community. A fifth new course, entitled "Decentering the Cultural Map: Boundary Zones as Counter-Cores," was devoted to exploring not only maritime basins but also other kinds of geographical boundary zones. Offered in the fall of 1998 as a team-taught seminar, led by the grant's principal investigators, it proved highly popular with both seniors and graduate students. Finally, four course-enhancement grants were offered to Duke faculty on a competitive basis, to assist interested instructors with the challenge of incorporating basin perspectives into existing area-studies courses. Altogether, 187 students were enrolled in the 10 new or enhanced courses supported by the "Oceans Connect" initiative over the course of the past three semesters. (See Appendix C for a list of the course titles, faculty, department loci, and enrollment figures for these courses.)

      * Student research support: A third component of this initiative supported student research assistantships and research travel on trans-oceanic topics. We supported five faculty members in hiring graduate and undergraduate assistants to work on new research projects developed around the theme of oceans connect. And we offered summer travel stipends in 1998 to graduate and undergraduate students to defray travel costs and living expenses for research trips. Two undergraduate awardees traveled to Taiwan and Italy, respectively, to interview migrant workers. Graduate awardees traveled to Korea to study the introduction of Western brewery science and technology to East Asian countries; to Japan to study representations of gender and sexuality in Japanese comic books; to Martinique to conduct research on nineteenth-century connections between metropolitan France and the French West Indies; and to Washington, Alaska, and British Columbia to investigate the political economy of North Pacific fisheries. With the support of the Center for International Studies we will offer up to six Oceans Connect awards for the summer of 1999. Based on the success of this initial effort, we hope to offer an expanded program of stipends and research assistantships in the future.

      * Conference support: A highlight of the year, and in many ways the culmination of the seed grant, was a three-day workshop held on the Duke campus from October 29-31, 1998, entitled "Oceans Connect: Mapping a New Global Scholarship." Thanks to broad-based support -- not only from the Ford Foundation but also from a dozen departments and area studies centers on campus, from the university's Common Fund for Interdisciplinary Research, and from the Trent Foundation -- this symposium was able to bring thirteen scholars from a wide variety of international institutions to the Triangle area for a spirited weekend of intellectual exchange. Each out-of-town participant provided a brief (ten-page) thought-piece in advance on an assigned theme, participated in one of seven thematic panels, and contributed comments from the floor as we explored together the disparate linkages and conflicts that have shaped the Atlantic, Pacific, Mediterranean, and Indian Ocean regions. Local participants, including students as well as faculty, served primarily as chairs and discussants for the sessions, but also staffed two final panels that focused on the pedagogical and institutional challenges involved in historicizing, critiquing, and creating alternatives to the continental map of world regions.

      Convening this conference on campus helped us fulfill three goals: (1) providing a public forum for showcasing Duke's basin-centered research and teaching efforts to date; (2) sparking further ideas for the next round of the "Oceans Connect" project; and (3) launching a wider awareness in the area studies community about the exciting potentials of the basin model. (For a breakdown of workshop participants by region and field, please see Appendix D.)

      * Faculty planning group: An advisory committee has met regularly since the beginning of the "Oceans Connect" initiative. This committee has been comprised of students, staff, and faculty representatives associated with each basin group. It has been instrumental not only in evaluating the progress of the grant-sponsored initiatives but also in generating further ideas for reorienting upper-level area-studies teaching and research around ocean basins. This group has met monthly since August 1997 to pursue its four-fold charge: (1) exploring the critical and curricular issues of basin approaches; (2) planning the October 1998 workshop; (3) monitoring the ongoing progress of the initiatives supported by the seed grant; and (4) identifying future projects, rooted in the faculty/student basin groups, which will become the core of our next "Crossing Borders" proposal. The budget for this committee allowed us to offer very modest honoraria to committee members during the first year, and to continue to provide lunches and clerical support for its monthly meetings.

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Collaborations

      In preparing the initial application to The Ford Foundation, project organizers had numerous conversations with representatives from Duke University's area studies programs. Many faculty connected to these centers were cautious in their support of the project, fearing that Oceans Connect would supplant traditional area studies. Through continuing discussions over three semesters, the concerns of area studies faculty have transformed into endorsement. Moreover, Oceans Connect has provided area centers faculty with new ways of thinking through the relationship between the geographical and epistemological borders of their research. In January 1999, Duke's Council on Latin American Studies submitted an application for a Rockefeller Humanities Institute that was specifically conceived with Oceans Connect as a backdrop. The "Project on Latin/America" focuses on how colonial and national borders relate to borders in scholarship, seeking to develop models for an inter-american studies program.

      Oceans Connect has expanded Duke's web of international academic linkages. One of the most exciting developments within the Oceans Connect project has been the rapidly developing ties of Duke's Mediterranean studies working group with universities around the sea's rim. Principal among these is the relationship with the University of Tunis I. The two schools have supported an ad hoc faculty exchange and two joint conferences (March 1998 and May 1999). In December 1998, the schools submitted a joint application to the United States Information Agency for a three-year faculty exchange built around Mediterranean studies. The Mediterranean group is enhancing ties with the University of Muhammad V in Rabat, the Autonomous University of Barcelona, and Venice International University (of which Duke is a consortium member).

      The Eurasian Seas working group secured funding from NATO, IREX, and the Trust for Mutual Understanding to support an Advanced Research Workshop on "The Caspian Sea: In Search of Environmental Security," which will bring forty scholars from all of the littoral countries of the Caspian region to Venice in March, 1999. The group will report the proceedings in a published volume. Duke is developing a second workshop, which will focus on the Black Sea, in partnership with the International Maritime Law Association and Kog University (Turkey), a partner in the United States Information Agency-funded faculty exchange with Duke.

      The working groups on the Atlantic and Indian oceans are in the early stages of planning international links. The fall 1998 conference allowed faculty members from the working groups to invite potential partners with whom they could discuss developing possible ties for the project's second phase. More recently, Duke faculty members in the Atlantic, Indian and Mediterranean working groups have initiated discussions with colleagues at universities in the U.S. All three groups have made contact with scholars at New York University, and the Indian Ocean working group is instituting connections with East Carolina University and the University of Iowa.

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Program Administration and Institutional Support

      The Office of the Vice Provost for Academic and International Affairs and the undergraduate Comparative Area Studies Program (CAS) have jointly overseen this initiative. Budgetary oversight has been provided by the Vice Provost; program management has been handled by the CAS co-directors, Martin Lewis and Kdren Wigen, who are the designated Principal Investigators for this proposal, with day-to-day support from the Center for International Studies. The center has provided assistance in organizing meetings and arranging meals, helped in distributing readings, and opened its seminar room to use by the working groups. The center was also instrumental in running the Oceans Connect workshop.

      The primary administrator of the project is the Oceans Connect program coordinator. She coordinates the basin group by managing the listservs, announcing meetings, distributing readings, and arranging meals. She supervises the student assistants for the project. She organizes and participates in the meetings of the Advisory Committee. As the project's primary contact person, she conducts correspondence, advertises the program to departments in this and other local universities, and oversees the Oceans Connect web page (www.duke.edu/web/oceans). She maintains the files of the project and assists in writing proposals and reports. Finally she was responsible for organizing the Oceans Connect conference, which involved corresponding with invited scholars, making travel, visa, and accommodation arrangements, organizing the publication of conference materials, and overseeing the conference program.

      As evidence of its commitment to this project, the Duke administration provided a special one-time grant of $25,000 to support "Oceans Connect" activities in its initial year (1997-98); based on the success of the first-year initiatives, the administration increased its support for 1998-99 to $67,500.

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Conclusion

      Oceans Connect has mobilized significant numbers of Duke faculty and students from a broad range of disciplines and opened discussions on promising new paradigms for international scholarship and pedagogy. By superimposing a fluid map of trans-oceanic ties onto the existing grid of area studies, it has prompted scholars and students alike to reexamine their ingrained ideas about the global community without losing sight of the importance of place (and of place-based knowledge). And in the process of exposing trans-oceanic linkages, participants have inevitably produced new linkages of their own. For all these reasons, we believe the "Oceans Connect" project is off to a great start.

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Atlantic Studies

Ian Baucom, English, Duke University (co-leader)

Charlie Piot, Cultural Anthropology, Duke University (co-leader)

Susan Brook, Literature, Duke University

John Chasteen, History, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Dawn Fulton, Literature, Duke University

Barry Gaspar, History, Duke University

Jessica Harland-Jacobs, History, Duke University

Rebecca Hartkopf Schloss, History, Duke University

Simon Hay, English, Duke University

Daniel Hoffman, Cultural Anthropology, Duke University

Jean Jonassaint, Romance Studies, Duke University

Victoria Lodewick, History, Duke University

Louise Meintjes, Music, Duke University

Rob Sikorski, Center for International Studies, Duke University

Eurasian Seas

Natalia Mirovitskaya, Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University (leader)

Jonathan Abels, Public Policy, Duke University

Catherina Admay, Law School, Duke University

Charles Andrews, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

William Ascher, Public Policy, Duke University

Konstantin Atanesyan, Public Policy, Duke University

Margaret Bartee, Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University

Anna Brooks, Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University

Susie Crate, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Susan Elinoff, Public Policy, Duke University

Katherine Ewing, Cultural Anthropology, Duke University

Bruce Kuniholm, Public Policy, Duke University

Malcolm Leggett, Public Policy, Duke University

Francis Lethem, Public Policy, Duke University

Martin Lewis, Comparative Area Studies, Duke University

David McNelis, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Michael Newcity, Center for Slavic, Eurasian, and East European Studies, Duke University

Kenneth Rogerson, Public Policy, Duke University

Elizabeth de Santo, Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University

Elizabeth Sklad, Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University

Marvin Soroos, Political Science, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Kristin Stiles, Art, Duke University

David Uuspashvili, Public Policy, Duke University

Ben Zelinsky, Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University

Mediterranean Studies

Miriam Cooke, Asian and African Languages and Literature, Duke University (leader)

Helmy Baligh, Fuqua School of Business, Duke University

Mary Boatwright, Classical Studies, Duke University

Peter Burian, Classical Studies, Duke University

Diskin Clay, Romance Studies, Duke University

Rkia Cornell, Asian and African Languages and Literature, Duke University

Vince Cornell, Religion, Duke University

Robert Dainotto, Duke University

Gregson Davis, Classical Studies, Duke University

Valeria Finucci, Romance Studies, Duke University

Dawn Fulton, Literature, Duke University

Guven Guzeldere, Philosophy, Duke University

Chouki El Hamel, History, Duke University

Michael Hardt, Literature, Duke University

Rachida Jackson, Afro-American Studies, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Akram Khater, History, North Carolina State University

Bruce Kuniholm, Public Policy, Duke University

Bruce Lawrence, Religion, Duke University

Michele Lamprakos, Art, Duke University

Michele Longino, Romance Studies, Duke University

Lydia Malki. Romance Studies, Duke University

Khaled Mattawa, Duke University

Carol Meyers, Religion, Duke University

Eric Meyers, Religion, Duke University

Walter Mignolo. Romance Studies, Duke University

Linda Orr, Romance Studies, Duke University

Marcel Tetel, Romance Studies, Duke University

Teresa Vilaros, Romance Studies, Duke University

Eric Zakim, Asian and African Languages and Literature, Duke University

Pacific Visions

Kdren Wigen, History, Duke University (leader)

Anne Allison, Cultural Anthropology, Duke University

David Ambaras, History, North Carolina State University

Deborah Breen, History, Duke University

Derek Chang, History, Duke University

Ya-chung Chuang, Cultural Anthropology, Duke University

Dan Duffy, Anthropology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Masamichi Inoue, Cultural Anthropology, Duke University

Mavis Mayer, Asian/ Pacific Studies Institute

Sucheta Mazumdar, History, Duke University

Meg McKean, Political Science, Duke University

John Mertz, Foreign Languages and Literatures, North Carolina State University

Gwenn Miller, History, Duke University

Anna Mutoh, Duke University

Simon Partner, History, Duke University

Catherin Phipps, History, Duke University

Jennifer Prough, Cultural Anthropology, Duke University

Alex Roland, History, Duke University

Franziska Seraphim, History, Columbia University

Suzanne Shanahan, Sociology, Duke University

Ken Surin, Literature, Duke University

Kris Troost, Perkins Library, Duke University

Tony Vassalo, History, West Point

Wendy Wall, History, Duke University

Jing Wang, Asian and African Languages and Literature, Duke University

Gennifer Weisenfeld, Art History, Duke University

Peter Wood, History, Duke University

Marcia Yonemoto, History, University of Colorado, Boulder

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Course Title	Instructor	Department(s)	Semester	Enrollment
Third World Post Colonial Fiction	Ian Baucom	English African and African-American Studies	Fall 98	17
Venetian Civilization and its Mediterranean Background	Gregson Davis	Classical Studies	Summer 98	19
Indian Ocean Interactions	Jan Ewald	History African and African-American Studies	Fall 98	6
Political Economy of East Asia	Bai Gao	Sociology	To be offered
The Caribbean, 1492-1700	Barry Gaspar	History African and African-American Studies	Fall 98	44
The Caribbean in the Eighteenth Century	Barry Gaspar	History African and African-American Studies	Spring 98	48
Asian Diasporas in the Americas	Vasant Kaiwar	Comparative Area Studies	Spring 98	15
Environmental Security: Eurasia	Natalia Mirovitskaya	Comparative Area Studies Environment	Spring 99	7
World Economy vs. Ecology	Natalia Mirovitskaya	Public Policy	Spring 99	15
Europe's Colonial Encounter	Susan Thorne	History	To be offered
The Culture of Immigration and and the Commodification of National Sentiment	Teresa Vilaros	Spanish	To be offered
Decentering the Cultural Map: Boundary Zones as Counter-Cores	Karen Wigen/ Martin Lewis	History; Comparative Area Studies	Fall 98	16

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Name	Affiliation	Field	Region (s)
Hassen Annabi	University of Tunis	History	Mediterranean Sea
Ian Baucom	Duke University	English	Atlantic Ocean
Jerry Bentley	University of Hawaii	History	Pacific Ocean/ Global
Sugata Bose	Tufts University	History	Indian Ocean
Benjamin Braude	Boston College	History	Global
Carolyn Cartier	University of Oregon	Geography	Pacific Ocean
John Cell	Duke University	History	Atlantic/ Indian Oceans
Miriam Cooke	Duke University	Literature/Arabic	Mediterranean Sea
Vincent Cornell	Duke University	Religion	Indian Ocean/ Mediterranean Sea
Gregson Davis	Duke University	Classics	Mediterranean Sea/ Atlantic Ocean
Jan Ewald	Duke University	History	Indian Ocean
Kathy Ewing	Duke University	Anthropology	Indian Ocean
Barry Gaspar	Duke University	History	Atlantic Ocean
Richard Grove	Australian National University	History	Global
Jessica Harland	Duke University	History	Atlantic
John Headley	University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill	History	Indian Ocean
Vasant Kaiwar	Duke University	History	Indian Ocean
Bruce Kuniholm	Duke University	Public Policy	Mediterranean/ Eurasian Seas
Bruce Lawrence	Duke University	Religion	Mediterranean Sea/ Indian Ocean
Martin Lewis	Duke University	Geography	Indian Ocean/ Global
Elizabeth Mancke	University of Akron	History	Atlantic Ocean
Sucheta Mazumdar	Duke University	History	Pacific Ocean
Walter McDougall	University of Pennsylvania	History	Pacific Ocean
Walter Mignolo	Duke University	Romance Studies	Mediterranean Sea
Charlie Piot	Duke University	Anthropology	Atlantic Ocean/ Mediterranean Sea
Jeni Prough	Duke University	Anthropology	Pacific Ocean
John Richards	Duke University	History	Indian Ocean
Joseph Roach	Yale University	English	Atlantic Ocean
Rebecca Schloss	Duke University	History	Atlantic Ocean
Abdul Sheriff	Zanzibar Museums	History	Indian Ocean
Rob Sikorski	Duke University	History	Atlantic Ocean
Sanjay Subrahmanyam	Centre D'Etudes de L'Inde et de l'Asie du Sud	History	Indian Ocean
Rachida Triki	University of Tunis	Philosophy	Mediterranean Sea
Teresa Vilaros	Duke University	Romance Studies	Mediterranean Sea
Karen Wigen	Duke University	History	Pacific Ocean
Marcia Yonemoto	University of Colorado, Boulder	History	Pacific Ocean

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