John Shiga

Toronto Metropolitan University

jshiga@torontomu.ca

Media theory underwater

Plato. Phaedrus. In Plato: The Collected Dialogues, edited by Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns, 475–525. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1961.

Joy Partridge, “Elements of Uncertainty: Visualizing the ‘Spheres’ of Water and Earth in the Late Middle Ages,” Different Visions: New Perspectives on Medieval Art 9 (2023)�

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Thomas R. Anderson and Tony Rice, “Deserts on the Sea Floor: Edward Forbes and His Azoic Hypothesis for a Lifeless Deep Ocean,” Endeavour 30, no. 4 (2006): 131–137.�

Roger Payne, prod., Songs of the Humpback Whale (Tokyo: CRM Records, 1970; reissued 1979 and 2001), LP.

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“This record consists of humpback whale calls, some of which were picked up by US Navy hydrophones near Bermuda. Whale sound had previously been regarded as “noise” in military contexts. By reframing those such “noises” as ‘songs,’ the record suggested that they have communicative functions among whales.”

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John Shiga, “Environmental History of Oceanic Noise Pollution,” in Oxford Bibliographies in Environmental History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2025).

Jacques Cousteau and Louis Malle, The Silent World (France, 1956), film.

Starbreaker, directed by Bruce Mackay, special effects design by Colin Low (Montreal: National Film Board of Canada, 1985), film.

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I-lly Cheng, Touche Nature (live performance, 2017).

Water Line / Estuary Almanac by Absolute Value of Noise and Anna Friz (2023-24).

Zishuo Li, Untitled sound composition, 2025

Thank you!

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John Shiga

jshiga@torontomu.ca

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