SHN Lecture: In the Wake of Submarine Telegraphy: How Cables Made the Deep Sea Knowable and Strategic

Communication networks are in the crosshairs. Warfare, rising international tensions, monopolistic private companies and the ravages of climate change currently make global means of communication seem more vulnerable than they have for decades. Internet cables at the bottom of the sea suddenly appeared as military targets in the winter of 2024, when three connections across the Baltic broke down under suspicious circumstances involving vessels linked to China and Russia. Today’s dangers to global communications might appear to be unprecedented, but the past holds plenty of precursors. Critical communications infrastructure at the bottom of the sea has been a topic of international concern for over a century.

In this lecture, prof. Helen Rozwadowski will discuss how the deep sea first became a space of strategic interest with the development of submarine telegraph communication since the 1850s. She will show how cables made the deep sea knowable, generating new insight into this previously unexplored realm, which in turn supported increasingly strategic conceptions of the seabed. Her historical analysis of nineteenth-century perceptions of the deep sea will take us below the surface of our stormy present and explore hidden continuities.