Professors Peter Westwick and Peter Neushul challenged the common perception of surfing Thursday night as they spoke about their new book, “The World in the Curl: An Unconventional History of Surfing” at the Karl Anatol Center.
Both Westwick and Neushul are professors at University of California, Santa Barbara, and together, they teach a class on the history of surfing.
What started as a topic of discussion between the two while they were enjoying the surf off the coast of Santa Barbara, has now turned into a new book on the history of surfing, Westwick and Neushul said.
“I think that it’s time for us to look more comprehensively at how this amazing sport fits into the larger context of American history,” Neushul said.
Thursday night’s talk centered on the book’s insight into the history of surfing and consisted of a 90-minute-long slideshow highlighting some of the details in the book.
From ancient Hawaiian folklore to the counterculture of the 1960s, all the way through to the mainstream industry-driven days of the present, the images and facts presented at the event were those that are rarely introduced to the public eye.
Many points were brought up during the presentation, including the notion that surfing, thought to have always been a natural and untouched sport, might not be as pure as one might think.
Man-made waves, chemically constructed surfboards and ties to capitalism, globalization, environmental pollution and the military industrial complex are enough to place surfing at the forefront of relevance in a vast array of worldly issues, according to Westwick and Neushul.
“The part that caught me by surprise was that I didn’t realize how much of our coast was engineered,” American studies major Andrew Ramirez, who attended the event, said.
Attendees were allowed to ask Westwick and Neushul questions after the presentation, and many hung around afterward to have their books signed by the authors.
“I thought the research was phenomenal, the fact that they put the science and technology aspect into it,” Ramirez said.
The topic of surfing has major significance to Cal State Long Beach and many of its students, in part, because of its location, according to Westwick and Neushul.
“Southern California is the epicenter of the surf industry,” Neushul said.
Because CSULB sits in the middle of a multi-billion dollar surf industry, Westwick and Neushul’s work has given an idea to the CSULB’s American studies department, according to American Studies Director Brett Mizelle.
As a result of the professors’ work, the American studies department has begun to consider offering a class about surfing, according to Mizelle.
“Surfing is a gateway to a whole lot of other issues,” Mizelle said. “I can guarantee you we could find students on campus who would never want to step foot into a history class to save their life, but when we introduce an American studies class on surfing, they’re going to learn something by accident.”