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Jesse Ransley

Jesse Ransley

My work centres on ethnographies of seafaring and oceans, particularly of the Indian Ocean past and present. I study the history and material culture of south Asian seafaring - from traditional boatbuilding and watery landscapes to maritime labour and shipboard societies, via lascars and piracy. These subjects reflect philosophical concerns with the embodied knowledges of seafaring and of how we conceive maritime space (as well as a desire to 'materialise' it within and through my research). Or, as it was recently put to me: 'you do 'bodies on boats', don't you?'.

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Julian Whitewright to be AIA’s 2014 Steffy Lecturer

Dr Julian Whitewright will be the Archaeological Institute of America’s Steffy Lecturer for 2014-2015. Julian will be delivering lectures at the University of Missouri, the University of Toronto and the University of Michigan during late October. He’ll present both his ongoing work into the sailing rigs of the ancient Mediterranean and research on eighteenth and nineteenth century British ships and shipbuilding. Continue reading →

Your relationship with the Sea.

We want to know about your views on maritime archaeology in your part of the world, whether that’s Britain or Bahrain, Europe or Uruguay. One of the most exciting parts of the MOOC for the team at Southampton is the opportunity to hear more about people’s experience of and views about maritime archaeology and maritime heritage around the world. Continue reading →

Shipwrecks and Submerged Worlds: starts Monday.

Our free, 4-week, online course starts on Monday. It’s a fantastic introduction to maritime archaeology open to anyone, anywhere in the world. Stuffed full of articles, videos, slideshows, interactive timelines and links to fantastic online resources, it has been designed by a team of lecturers, researchers and postgraduates at the Centre for Maritime Archaeology. They will be on hand throughout the course to respond to comments, queries and new ideas. Continue reading →

Shipwrecks and Submerged Worlds: starts Monday.

Our free, 4-week, online course starts on Monday. It’s a fantastic introduction to maritime archaeology open to anyone, anywhere in the world. Stuffed full of articles, videos, slideshows, interactive timelines and links to fantastic online resources, it has been designed by a team of lecturers, researchers and postgraduates at the Centre for Maritime Archaeology. They will be on hand throughout the course to respond to comments, queries and new ideas. Continue reading →

Shipwrecks and Submerged Worlds: starts Monday.

Our free, 4-week, online course starts on Monday. It’s a fantastic introduction to maritime archaeology open to anyone, anywhere in the world. Stuffed full of articles, videos, slideshows, interactive timelines and links to fantastic online resources, it has been designed by a team of lecturers, researchers and postgraduates at the Centre for Maritime Archaeology. They will be on hand throughout the course to respond to comments, queries and new ideas. Continue reading →

Free Online Maritime Archaeology Course

Registration is now open for Shipwrecks and Submerged Worlds,  a free four week online course offered in conjunction with FutureLearn and starting on the 6th October 2014. Shipwrecks and Submerged Worlds gives you a unique opportunity  to gain an insight into the fascinating world of maritime archaeology, in an open access and engaging format. Continue reading →

Material seas and political acts

Monday was wonderfully watery at the British Water and Beyond symposium. Our session was truly interdisciplinary, with papers from an artist, literary scholar, archaeologist and anthropologist all converging on questions of maritime space, modernity and material seas. John Hartley discussed Deleuze, DeLanda and his own Contingency Research Platform, an absolutely amazing piece of marine hacking/boat building art. Continue reading →

Material seas

    In the last week I’ve spent an improbably large amount of time thinking about various philosophical conceptions of maritime space. This is due partly to Monday’s British Waters and Beyond: The cultural significance of the sea since 1800 at the Royal West of England Academy in Bristol, and partly to my increasing obsession with sailing directions. Continue reading →

Axes and ancient boat building skills

CMA masters students spent most of the long bank holiday weekend at Buckler’s Hard in the New Forest learning ancient boat and ship building skills. The backdrop of the River Beaulieu, the intermittent sunshine and occasional ice cream belie the serious labour (both physical and intellectual) involved in learning to work with adzes and axes. Using a range of replica tools students worked with chunks of oak to recreate boat building technologies from the Bronze Age to the Post Medieval period. Continue reading →

‘What is a boat? Materials and moments’ Seminar on 27th Feb.

  The next Departmental Seminar on Thursday Feb 27th, 5-6pm, will see Jesse Ransley discussing material stories and boats: What is a boat? Materials and moments. Subodh Gupta’s 2012 sculpture ‘What does the vessel contain, that the river does not’ is a kettuvallam, a ‘sewn’ boat from Kerala, filled with everyday objects, from chairs and cooking pots to a bicycle and television. Continue reading →