Join us for the next Haunted Shores conference!

Beyond the Blue Planet: Outer Space, Inner Space, and Extraterrestrial Oceans

Online: 2 April 2027

(Double, a crater in the Moon’s Sea of Tranquility)

‘It seemed to him that the wharf was floating away into the night; but it was Nostromo, who was already pushing against a pile with one of the heavy sweeps. Decoud did not move; the effect was that of being launched into space.’
Joseph Conrad, Nostromo (1904)

‘This is Ripley, last survivor of the Nostromo, signing off.’
Alien (1979)

We know more about the bottom of the sea than we know about the moon. Or is it the other way around? If the temptation to invoke outer space when speaking of the deeper reaches of the ocean seems irresistible to so many writers and filmmakers, how far might we reverse the polarity and trace the figures of shores and oceans in imaginative and nonfictional engagements with outer space?

This symposium will explore what happens when the blue humanities, coastal studies, and gothic and other genre studies turn their attention away from the depths beneath us and towards the depths above us. It seeks to consider how these critical modes might be enriched by thinking beyond the blue planet; how our understandings of outer space can be enhanced through the forms of thinking these critical modes enable; and how our apprehension of the water bodies and littoral zones on Earth may be enriched – or compromised – by attending to the frequent comparison of the oceans with outer space. In scientific endeavours and popular media, the spacecraft is often visually and linguistically aligned with their “Earth”-bound maritime forebears: undertaking voyages of discovery and even colonisation, these space-ships draw in their wake histories of terrestrial “discoveries” and colonisation. Explorers descending to the benthos and lower regions of the ocean will speak of descending into “inner space”, rhetorically connecting this environment with the more familiar, perhaps even more visible, realm of outer space. Water worlds in galaxies around the universe are often posited as the most likely sites of extraterrestrial life – a prospect that shapes a huge amount of gothic and weird science fiction and cosmic horror, while also shaping ideas about what such life might be like. We might also suggest that turning our attention towards an aqueous cosmos might not be the same as turning away from earthly concerns, but as offering a way to see such concerns anew, to reconceptualise and reframe them against a cosmic backdrop – drawing us perhaps closer to the waters and waterborne and littoral histories of the planet we currently inhabit.

We invite 15 minute papers or 45 minute pre-formed panels that consider any aspect of the connection between outer space and the oceanic or littoral, and are especially keen to prioritise the shores, ocean worlds, and ancient seas that might be found or imagined on other planets throughout interstellar space. We welcome proposals from any relevant academic discipline, as well as from writers, artists, filmmakers, and other creative practitioners. Papers may address material from any time period or genre and any national or cultural tradition – from antiquity to the present (and beyond?).

Please send an abstract (200-300 words) and a brief biography (no more than 150 words) to hauntedshoresinfo@gmail.com by 10 January 2027 with the subject line ‘Beyond the Blue Planet’.

Topics papers might explore include (but are not limited to):

  • Literary, filmic, artistic or other depictions of oceans and shores on other planets
  • Figurative and metaphorical use of terms such as ‘shore’ and ‘ocean’ to describe features of other planets and celestial bodies
  • The aesthetics or politics of the spacecraft as a voyaging ship, tanker or freighter, war ship, colonial vessel, or as wreck
  • The trope or cliché of comparing the deep ocean with outer space
  • Notions of interstellar and abyssal depths
  • Representations of sea-life as alien life, and alien life as sea-life
  • The prospect of extraterrestrial life as aqueous
  • Cosmic horror
  • Lunar gothic (see Gomel and Bacon, 2025)
  • The transplantation of coastal/deep-sea gothic forms and tropes into interstellar or celestial settings
  • Narratives of wreckage, drift, and isolation in outer space
  • Depictions of terraforming planets for human habitation as aquaforming
  • Perspectives from outer space on Earth’s oceans, coastlines, and connected weather systems.

Following the convention of numerous previous Haunted Shores events, and in the interest of opening global (cosmic?) discussions, this symposium will be held completely online. Speakers will be asked to provide a video or audio recording of their talk, which will be released on an interactive web channel. These papers will be available to preview before one/ day of live online activities, including keynote presentations, live panel discussions, breakout groups, ECR and PGR-focused panels, and a Haunted Shores reading group session.

We strongly encourage submissions from scholars at any stage of their careers and from practitioners, artists, and activists. The live programme will take into consideration time zones as much as is possible. We hope that pre-recorded presentations and asynchronous discussion opportunities will help enable a wide range of participation from many locations.

Indicative timeline:

Abstracts due 10 January — responses by 22 January
Pre-recorded papers to be submitted 15 March
Conference website/videos accessible from 26 March
Live conference sessions 2 April