Literature of the Sea
A Reading Workshop
Facilitated by Richard King
with an appearance by author Charles Johnson in the third session
August 2025 - Charles Johnson's Middle Passage
Weekly Meetings on three Saturdays (Pacific Time)
Aug 9th (9:00-10:00 AM)
Aug 16th (9:00-10:00AM)
Aug 23rd (9:00-10:30 AM)
This course will be virtual and meet online via Zoom
Limited to 10 participants
Let's stay connected through literature - read, discuss, and meet the author!
Catamaran’s “Literature of the Sea Seminar” is designed for readers, writers, and thinkers. Over Zoom, we will meet once a week for three weeks to discuss one book. The first two sessions will be for one hour, and the third session, with the author, will be 1.5 hours.
For this seminar we are reading Middle Passage by Charles Johnson, which won the National Book Award. This modernist, best-selling novel is set in the Atlantic and explores the history of the Middle Passage, African American literature of the sea, and the sea narrative genre itself. Middle Passage by Charles Johnson is not a long read, but it is multi-layered, exceptionally compelling and important, while also highly aware of its place within other literary works.
The “Literature of the Sea Seminar” will host a maximum of ten students. Each online meeting will be a mixture of moderated discussion and brief presentations by your instructor. There are no papers or exams, just thoughtful conversation and learning within a welcoming, inclusive community!
$60 for subscribers
$75 for non-subscribers
(each registration is for three weekly sessions)
Richard J. King has been a professor of literature of the sea for over thirty years, both at sea and on land, for the Sea Education Association (Woods Hole) and previously the Williams College-Mystic Seaport Maritime Studies Program. He is the author of five books about the ocean, including most recently Sailing Alone: A History, which was named a Best Book of the Year by The Economist and The Maritime Foundation (UK), and it earned the 2024 silver medal from the National Outdoor Book Awards. He also wrote Ahab's Rolling Sea: A Natural History of Moby-Dick, lauded in Science, Nature, and American Scholar. He writes and illustrates a regular column for Sea History magazine. For more about Rich, please see "www.richardjking.info"
