Welcome to our inaugural volume of the Written in the Waves Journal.
Sailing was born from our vision of the boundaries of the Atlantic world, and how those boundaries could be pushed. What was needed, we thought, was a journey into what the Atlantic could be: new ideas, new perspectives, and a new space for women to be in connection with themselves and our community. Sailing is equally a call to academic excellence as it is to whimsy and beauty. What better way to explore this journey than to do so by sailing around the Atlantic?
Our journey takes us through several Atlantic spaces: we meet Privateers in Nova Scotia, Canada, and grapple with witchcraft and juniper berries in New England, America. We don’t stop there: on our voyage across the pond, we discuss the false logic of trans-Atlantic miasma, until we reach early-modern England and thirteenth-century France… intrigued? Dive into our volume to find out more.
This volume would not be complete without the work of our talented authors. Megan, Paige, Caliesha, Bethany, Vivian, Fiona, and Ana: we cherish you deeply. We’re also indebted to our wonderful contributor team (many of whom are featured in this volume) and our friends at the Network in Canadian History & Environment (NiCHE) for their support.
Beginning in 2021, our co-founders first met as undergraduate students in the Department of History at McMaster University. Bonding over their love of women’s history from the ancient to the modern world, Sarah and Annabelle dreamed of creating their own space for emerging scholars who shared a similar passion for spotlighting women in history. As Sarah and Annabelle continued through their graduate studies (History and Cultural Anthropology, respectively), they became increasingly familiar with the gendered structural barriers of higher academia. To combat such a system, our co-founders established Written in the Waves, a platform focused on collaborationrather than competition. However, Written in the Waves was more than a project focused on inclusivity in scholarship; it also represented Sarah and Annabelle’s own personal connections to their home: the Atlantic. Sarah’s doctoral research is situated within her ancestral Newfoundland, focusing on socio-cultural histories of local mining communities. In contrast, Annabelle’s current MA project is a study on Azorean-Jewish cultural memory through the curation and care of the museum and cemetery.
The Atlantic is both beautiful and dangerous, she welcomes yet also spurns. She not only surrounds our histories and remains on its peripherals, but she envelops them entirely; in culture, in folklore, in history, and in the environment. She is life and decay in her sparkling abyss.
