The Frantic Atlantic: Ocean Liners in the Interwar Literary Imagination
Channel: War Studies KCL
Date: 2021-02-23

Transatlantic literary exchange depended, in the early twentieth century, on the ocean liner. Books and periodicals were exported via sea routes, lent among passengers or through ships' libraries, and even bought and sold on board. Many authors and journalists travelled on the Atlantic, finding inspiration for their writing in these journeys. This talk investigates the reading and writing practices which transatlantic liners enabled, and explores the meanings that were invested in these ships through literary narratives.

Bio: Faye Hammill is Professor of English Literature at the University of Glasgow. She is author of six monographs, mostly recently Modernism’s Print Cultures (2016, with Mark Hussey), and Magazines, Travel and Middlebrow Culture (2015, with Michelle Smith).

This seminar is part of the long-running ‘King’s Maritime History Seminars’ hosted by the Laughton Naval History Unit (on behalf of the British Commission for Maritime History and the Society for Nautical Research)