Hello all,
In “Finding Oannes,” the quest for the missing ship The Oannes, as a sign of intellectual harmony with nature, ultimately serves to highlight the disastrous implications of our faulty relationship with the natural world, as demonstrated by the shipwreck, pointing to a broader reflection on human-nature bonds.
As I reflect on this semester and this class, I feel like I have truly learned and grown a lot. I am a business administration major so a majority of my classes are not structured like this one nor are they as engaging as this. When I signed up for this class, I was just filling a requirement but I am so glad that I chose it, as it has been very eye opening for me. I didn’t know about or hadn’t actually thought about most of the information that we read and discussed about. Diving into the topics of environmental literature, ecological themes in storytelling, and the symbolism of mermaids has been enlightening. It has challenged me to look at the interconnectedness between literature, culture, and the natural world in ways I would have never before. The ideas and different perspectives the people in this class have brought up in discussions have broadened my own perspective and have allowed me to learn in such a different way. This class has deepened my appreciation for literature and I now am able to look at text in a different way. My close reading skills have definitely been improved as I really didn’t have much experience before this. I love that now I am able to notice the deeper meaning when I read and can question the why’s and the so what’s. My writing has also gotten a lot better as a result of this class and I am excited to end the year a stronger writer. This class did challenge me a bit though as it was out of my comfort zone, but I found myself actually wanting to go to class and learn. Overall, I really enjoyed the time I had in this class and I am sad it’s coming to an end.
For my final essay, I would like to write about song “Ize of the World” by the Strokes. The song is off of their album “First Impressions of Earth”, and the album as a whole criticizes behavior that has been normalized and touches upon how humanity has lost connection to nature by focusing on concepts like vanity, greed, and narcissism. The song itself, on the surface, asks where humanity went wrong. It touches upon the idea that humanity has chosen to sacrifice their instincts for the sake of order, but somewhere along the way, the order turned into a form of organized chaos.
When reading Edna as a selkie robbed of her pelt, her final act at the conclusion of Kate Chopin’s The Awakening transforms from one of self destruction to, instead, a return to the existence she was always meant to achieve. When Edna is a selkie, the Ocean acts as a means for her, instead of dying a watery death, to escape to something greater than the man-made institutions of the land that kept her bound to her husband’s house—it gifts her the opportunity to transform. This alternative ending circumvents terracentric epistemology by recharacterizing the Ocean as a transformative place that offers new opportunities for existence, rather than the unsurvivable void Western ideas previously believed it to be. Reading The Awakening as a selkie story awakens readers to the limits a terracentric outlook imposes on their imaginations, and begs them to look beyond the constructed boundaries this paradigm enforces.
In Derek Walcott’s poem The Sea is History, the sea serves as more than just a physical entity; it embodies an archive of collective memory, a symbol of both hope and tragedy, and a metaphor for the complex history and identity of the Caribbean people. The poem is an invitation to reconsider conventional narratives of history and to explore the sea as a storage of collective memory and untold stories. Challenging the traditional modes of historical studies that often prioritize written records and official accounts is important to foster a more inclusive and comprehensive understanding of history.
Thesis: Non-Western mermaid folk tales and stories use ocean-centric language to emphasize the importance of the ocean to their cultures. By doing this, the people of these cultures have a deeper understanding and a more profound respect for the ocean and all bodies of water than Western societies.
I plan to use Steve Mentz’s “Deterritorializing Preface” and Eric Pal Rooda’s “The Ocean Reader” to set up the argument for my essay.
Thesis: The chapter “Freak Shows and Fantasies” from Merpeople: A Human History by Vaughn Scribner explains how mermaids can be interpreted as symbolic representations of genuine human prejudices. This chapter connects the similarities between human prejudices and cultural narratives of mythical creatures shown through different cultures and periods through “Ti Jeanne” and “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire”. Mythical stories about fantasy creatures such as mermaids offer a paradigm for understanding a culture’s treatment of those deemed “other” and draw parallels for thinking about the mistreatment of human minorities as non-human or less than human.
Thesis: The concepts displayed in William Cronon’s “The Trouble With Wilderness“, mythical tales such as Andre Lebey’s “The Romance of the Faery Melusine“, and contemporary art of Emilija Skarnulyte’s “Sironemelia” highlight the continuous actions taken by Man to separate itself from the natural world-despite its significant historical role to the human species- arguing the cruciality to accept and expand an already tightened, but inevitable connection to the natural world for the preservation of our own well-being and more importantly the planet.
Seems broad, trying to find ways to add more specificity.
For my final essay I decided to extend on my second essay of Gabrielle Tesfaye but also try to incorporate The Deep as a second text as I believe they are both similar in story telling and the stories that are hidden from the world, but also with the story of slaves being thrown overboard. Any feedback is very appreciated :).
Thesis: In the short film The Water Will Carry Us Home by Gabrielle Tesfaye shows the demonstration of how selected stories portray what is known to be history. Tesfaye conveys this message through the use of stop motion art which is able to produce a story. This is significant as it shows a side of history that is not told or paid more attention to and it also shapes viewers thinking about the history that is already known.