A talk about Melody Jue's forthcoming book, Coralations. Coralations is a philosophical exploration of the media that come into focus when we shift our attention from the highly recognizable coral of the tropics. Focusing on soft corals and deep-water corals leads to different narratives about climate change and involves different analogies to media. Through thought-provoking analyses of photography, science fiction, visual art, and scientific images, Melody Jue renews our curiosity and broadens our understanding of corals beyond the dominant narratives about their endangerment. Coralations shows how paying attention to particular corals can change what we take for granted.

Melody Jue works across the fields of ocean humanities, science fiction, science studies, and media theory. She is the author of Wild Blue Media: Thinking Through Seawater (Duke University Press, 2020), which won the 2020 Speculative Fictions and Cultures of Science book award. She is the co-editor with Rafico Ruiz of Saturation (Duke University, 2021) and co-editor with Zach Blas and Jennifer Rhee of Informatics of Domination (Duke University Press, under contract).

Jue has published articles in journals including Grey Room, Configurations, Women’s Studies Quarterly, Resilience, and Media+Environment. Her new work explores the mediations of seaweeds in trans-Pacific contexts.