The Q&A for this talk will be hosted by Margaret Cohen, Andrew B. Hammond Professor of French Language, Literature, and Civilization at Stanford University.

What does the ocean remember? Can the ocean’s memories teach us to better steward our planet? In this talk, Melody Jue approaches this question as a literature and media scholar, drawing on eight years of collaboration with the Ocean Memory Project. This interdisciplinary group of scientists, artists, and humanists explores how the concept of memory reshapes the questions we ask about the ocean.

Jue examines how ocean memory might be understood not only as history, but as a capacity for anticipating and responding to future conditions. She considers how understanding chemosensation underwater can disrupt our anthropocentric approaches to time, smell, and marine life as we know it. Jue will explain what underwater memory might offer for imagining and preparing for the long now both on land and in the ocean.

Why This Talk Matters Now

As we face accelerating ocean warming and biodiversity loss, the ways we perceive and value the ocean shapes the planetary futures we imagine, and the actions we take to defend it. This talk reframes memory as an invaluable sensory capacity that can inform our long-term thinking and resilience in times of changing climate.

The Long View

By calling our attention to non-visual forms of perception, Jue challenges human-centered timelines that often dominate the discourse on environmental crises. Her work opens new ways of imagining responsibility and continuity across civilizations-long timelines.

Learn More

• READ Jue’s book Coralations, exploring marine coral as a climate archive.
• LEARN about The Ocean Memory Project, exploring how environmental changes are recorded in deep sea “memories”.
• WATCH Mark Lynas’s related 02012 Long Now talk on planetary boundaries, ocean acidification, and the threat to coral reefs.