In one of the most read articles recently published in Atlantic Studies, Caroline Kögler (Research Area 4: "Literary Currencies") follows The Tempest's nexus of ocean and emotion for new ways of understanding its place in an expanding, early colonial world. Interconnecting early modern scholarship on oceans, emotion, and race, the article juxtaposes The Tempest's privileging of white attachments and oceanic suffering with the fates of globally displaced African and indigenous persons summoned through Sycorax and Caliban. It also argues that the play renders salient a westward and potentially deadly route of travel for Prospero by partially aligning his journey with Magellan's and Drake's desired circumnavigations – their crossings of the Mare Pacifico, the 'peaceful ocean,' such as teased by Prospero's pleas for "gentle breath" in the Epilogue. Suggesting that The Tempest's geographical-cum-affective multi-referentiality reflects shifting notions of globality and precarious sea-travel in an early colonial world, the article opens up The Tempest to new global perspectives whilst contributing to diversifying early modern scholarship's own oceanic and affective coordinates.

Caroline Kögler. "Ocean and Emotion in Shakespeare's The Tempest – a Circumnavigation." Atlantic Studies. Global Currents, April 2 (2025) (Open Access).