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In humanities research, the oceans are increasingly viewed as sites not only of physical but also symbolic transgressions of territorial, national, regional, cultural and epistemological boundaries, with the ocean itself experiencing increased interest as a site of fluidity. This "oceanic turn" in the humanities and social sciences is taking place against the backdrop of a generally growing interest in “water bodies” such as oceans, but also seas, rivers, archipelagos or lakes and aims to develop an epistemology that understands the ocean as a reconstitution undertaken again and again through non-human and human, biological and geophysical, historical and contemporary aspects. Against this background, recent research has developed a critical paradigm for analyzing collective imaginations from the colonial era to the present under the heading of “hydrocriticism”, which not only takes the historical significance of shipping, ports, island territories or drainage systems as its starting point, but also explicitly considers water and oceanic pathways as metaphorical means.

In light of this, our conference explores the transoceanic imaginations and the underlying movements of exchange that make the diverse connections between the world’s literatures and cultures manifest. Imaginations charge physical-material places with meanings and concretize themselves in written and oral, acoustic and visual forms of expression through specific (aesthetic) practices that lie on both the production and reception side. In addition to the classic transatlantic focus, particular attention will be paid to imaginations of the transpacific contact between Latin America and Asia, the trans-Mediterranean connections between Europe, Africa and the Middle East, and the exchange between Africa, Australia and Asia that takes place across the Indian Ocean.