“Searchable Sea Literature,” a reference resource devoted to North American writers on the ocean or the Great Lakes, has a set of “tags.” These tags are listed below with active links, pertaining to the authors on this site. The tags, inevitably incomplete and in flux, are intended for research and the building of syllabi, where it might be helpful to narrow these authors’ work into specific categories, such as a particular subject or region or genre.
We have chosen, however, not to use tags based on the author’s sex, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, or sexual orientation because of the fluidity of these terms and our inability to do this confidently for all of our authors, both today and historically. If, however, you would like to find authors that our individual scholars have identified as, for example, “Black”/“African American” and/or “Jewish”, please type the word you are looking for in the search bar to the upper right, which will lead you to an incomplete list of authors. You can also go to the subject tags, eg “Race/Ethnicity and the Sea,” if the scholarly biographers have identified this subject in the author’s work. We accommodate some of the research into an author’s identity, as well as other topics, with a few select keywords, search aids, at the bottom of particular entries. See also “A Bibliography to the Study of Sea Literature” with selected essays on race, indigeneity, class, gender, and sexuality in sea literature, as well as other selected scholarly introductions to sub-themes within sea literature.
The tags below are active links. For tags that have numerous posts, click “older/newer posts” at the bottom of the page to see more.
Media
Period
pre-16th Century
16th Century
17th Century
18th Century
19th Century
20th Century
21st Century
Language Translations
Genre
Children’s Writing
Fiction
First-person narrative
Journalism
Multimedia/Multimodal (visual art, film, music, graphic novel, etc.)
Nonfiction
Oral Tradition
Poetry
Plays
Science Fiction
Short Story
Region
Antarctic
Arctic
Atlantic Ocean
Caribbean
Great Lakes
Gulf of Mexico
Indian Ocean
Pacific Ocean
Pacific Islands
Southern Ocean
Subjects
Class/Labor and the Sea
Coastal Life
Exploration
Fishing
Gender/Sexuality and the Sea
Island Life
Immigration
Navy/Coast Guard
Maritime History
Merchant Marine (cargo and passenger ships)
Middle Passage and Enslavement
Passenger Travel (ferries, trans-oceanic passages for travel, etc.)
Piracy (including privateering, smuggling, etc.)
Race/Ethnicity and the Sea
Recreation (Beaches, Cruise Ships, Small Boat Sailing)
Science/Nature
War
Whaling/Sealing
Women Protagonists/Subjects
Acknowledgments
This reference philosophy for Searchable Sea Literature was developed by summer 2020 research assistants Marija Miklavčič (U. of Rochester) and Dominick Leskiw (Colby College), and SSL editor Richard King, with the generous and thoughtful consultation and ideas from Drea Finley, Emery Shriver, and Lisa Conathan, staff members at Williams College. This was revised in the summer of 2021 by research assistants Maya Anderson (Centre College) and Kiara Royer (Williams College), and SSL editor Ned Schaumberg.