Photo courtesy Dr. Jennifer McKinnon, ECU Program in Maritime Studies
People always say this, but I really was honored to be invited to speak to the alumni, faculty, and especially current graduate students in the Program in Maritime Studies, from which I graduated myself, 19 years ago. The two professors who taught my maritime history surveys back in ’96 and ’97 were both in the audience. Neither of them fell asleep or chided me afterwards. I’ll take that.
We were there to celebrate 35 years of this unique program, of which I’m proud to be an alumnus. My remarks were intended as an endorsement of the founders’ vision, based on my own experience doing maritime history at the professional level. Dr. Still and Dr. Watts were absolutely right; we can’t advance maritime historical scholarship without an inter-disciplinary toolkit based on training in history, archaeology, anthropology, and material culture.
I met some cool new people and re-connected with some cool old people (and some that aren’t quite old, but working on it–like me).
If you’d like to know more about the Program in Maritime Studies at East Carolina, click here to explore.
Happy 35th to a bunch of hard-working, hard-playing pirates.
“It’ ain’t Club Med…” –Dr. Brad Rodgers, Director
PHILLIP REID 