BEAUFORT, N.C. – Summer registration is open for courses at the Duke Marine Lab! While many students are drawn to the Marine Lab’s science courses (and the Beaufort area’s beaches), an additional course option is available to students in each of the summer terms: literature.

“Literature gives you a different perspective on how to study the environment.  It not only asks you to understand physical places like Beaufort, but how we represent these places to ourselves, and these representations are always entangled with particular communities of people, cultural values, and historical contexts,” says Melody Jue, instructor for the Summer Term II course Literature 390SA,”Literature, Science, and the Sea.”  Jue is a PhD student in the 91 Program in Literature.

Jue’s focus this summer will be on bringing what students are learning at the Marine Lab into relationship with texts such as Cannery Row by John Steinbeck, The Tempest by William Shakespeare, and The Hungry Tide by Amitav Ghosh.

“The texts we’re reading all show cross-fertilization between the literary imagination of the ocean, the physical ocean, and studies and narratives of ocean science. For example, terms that come up in conservation literature are often drawn from literature, like the phrase ‘a sea change,’ which originates in Shakespeare’s The Tempest,” Jue said. 

Students in “Literature, Science and the Sea” can look forward to taking their books outside with them, as Jue’s class will be seeking out local spots that echo the places they are reading about.

Jue is excited to draw connections between the literature and the student’s Marine Lab experience: “The Hungry Tide takes place in the Sundarbands, a network of islands with mangrove marshes and bengal tigers.  We’ll be kayaking in some of the marshes near Beaufort, and while we shouldn’t see any tigers, it will be exciting to look for our own surprises!”

Marine science courses are offered in two terms each summer (Term I is May 13-June 14; Term II is July 8-August 9) for undergraduate and graduate students.  Courses are offered in a variety of disciplines:  biology, marine biology, molecular biology, marine animal physiology, physics, marine ecology, biology and conservation of sea turtles, marine mammals, and research independent study.

Summer Term I (May 13-June 14) will also have Literature 390: “Writing the Seas: Literature of Exploration,” taught by Michael Ennis, a lecturing fellow through the Duke Thompson Writing Program.

Both literature courses can be taken concurrently with any complementary science course offered in the respective term.

Students interested in applying for the Duke Marine Lab summer terms should visit the Duke Marine Lab Website at .