Lunchtime Lecture: Humans, the Seabed, and the End of the World

Join us for a Lunchtime Lecture in partnership with the University of Bristol's Centre for Environmental Humanities. Humans, the Seabed, and the End of the World While often characterized as an alien realm, the seabed has long been fundamental to human life. This talk surveys the history of humans at the ocean floor, from the laying of cables to the extraction of minerals, discussing the seabed's evocation in literary works by authors from Shakespeare to Kipling and asking why this remote part of the world has so often prompted thoughts of the apocalypse. Dr Laurence Publicover is Associate Professor in Literature and Oceanic Studies at the University of Bristol, where he also co-directs the MA in Environmental Humanities. He is the author of Dramatic Geography (Oxford University Press, 2017), Fathoming the Deep in English Renaissance Tragedy (Oxford University Press, 2024), and, with Jimmy Packham, The Seabed: A Human and Literary History (University of Chicago Press, 2026). Alongside Susann Liebich, he also co-edited the volume Shipboard Literary Cultures: Reading, Writing, and Performing at Sea (Palgrave, 2021).