**NOTE the readings are assigned to the date due. So, come to class prepared to discuss the reading associated with the date listed below.
READINGS
** I prefer students to have a physical copy of the book or the PDF in class, rather than a cell phone or computer.
Required Reading (available at SDSU bookstore or on reserve in Love Library’s Circulation Desk)
-Cristina Bacchilega and Marie Alohalani Brown, eds. The Penguin Book of Mermaids (Penguin, 2019)
-Vaughn Scribner, Merpeople: A Human History (University of Chicago Press, 2020) (online access through SDSU Library)
-Rivers Solomon, The Deep (Saga, Gallery Press, 2019). (available through Library’s online access– 3 users at a time):
Week 1: Introductions
January 18: Introduction to the class and each other
Week 2:
Vaughn Scribner, Merpeople: A Human History (University of Chicago Press, 2020): (online access through SDSU Library)
-“Introduction” to Merpeople: A Human History (pgs. 7-27)
-Chapter 1, “Medieval Monsters” (pgs. 29-57)
-Chapter 2, “New Worlds, New Wonders” (pgs. 59-93)
Week 3: Mermaid as Metaphor and Paradigm for Understanding Culture, History, and the Environment
January 30: Discuss Vaughn Scribner, Merpeople: A Human History: Introduction, Ch. 1, Ch. 2
February 1: Cristina Bacchilega and Marie Alohalani Brown, “Introduction: The Stories We Tell about Mermaids and Other Water Spirits” (Penguin, ix-xxii)
Week 4: Ancient Origin Myths
February 6: “Oannes” (Babylonian) (Penguin, pgs. 3-4),
“Kaliya, the Snake” (India) (Penguin, pgs. 5-8)
“The Tuna (Eel) of Lake Vaihiria” (Pacific Islands) (Penguin, pgs. 13-18)
“Sedna” (Inuit): https://www.palomar.edu/users/scrouthamel/ais100/sedna.htm
Cristina Bacchilega and Marie Alohalani Brown, “Water Beings of Indigenous North America” (Penguin, pgs. 281)
February 8: “Odysseus and the Sirens” (ancient Greece) (Penguin, pgs. 9-12)
Week 5: Medieval Melusine (14th Century, France)
February 13: “The Legend of Melusina” (Penguin, pgs. 85-88)
and, from The Romance of the Faery Melusine (Gareth Knight, translated by Andre Lebey, 19th C).
Ch. 1: “The Great Old Hunter” (PDF, pgs.11-15)
Ch. 3: “The Faery at the Fountain” (PDF, pgs. 23-29)
February 15: from The Romance of the Faery Melusine (Gareth Knight, translated by Andre Lebey, 19th C)
Ch.14: “Betrayal” (PDF, pgs. 119-125)
Ch. 22: “Departure” (PDF, pgs. 138-144)
Week 6: The Modern Era: 19th C Industrialism & Capitalism
February 20: Class canceled
February 22: from Undine (1811) (Penguin, pgs. 101-106)“The Feejee Mermaid Hoax” (Penguin, pgs. 239-244) and
-excerpt from Vaughn Scribner’s Merpeople: A Human History: from Chapter 4, “Freakshows and Fantasies” (125-129) (online access through SDSU Library)
**BRING printed draft of thesis for midterm essay
Week 7: The Victorian Standard
February 27: Hans Christian Andersen, The Little Mermaid (1837) (Penguin, p. 107-130)
**BRING printed draft of thesis for midterm essay
February 29: Hans Christian Andersen, The Little Mermaid (1837) (Penguin, p. 107-130)
**First Short Essay Assignment Due—either Discovery OR Close Reading– posted to the website—Sunday, March 3, at midnight**
Week 8: Defining “The Environment” and “The Wilderness”
March 5: William Cronon, “The Trouble with Wilderness” (1996)
March 7: William Cronon, “The Trouble with Wilderness” (1996)
Week 9: Introduction to the Environmental Humanities & the Blue Humanities
March 12: “The Emergence of Environmental Humanities” in The Environmental Humanities: A Critical Introduction, eds. Robert S. Emmett and David E. Nye (MIT Press, 2017) (pgs. 1-21)
March 14: John Gillis, “The Blue Humanities” (Humanities: The Journal of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Web. 2013)
Week 10: Introduction to Oceanic Thinking
March 19: Eric Paul Roorda, The Ocean Reader: Theory, Culture, Politics (Duke UP, 2020). ‘Introduction” (pgs. 1-4)
–Helen M. Rodzadowski, Vast Expanses: A History of the Oceans (Reaktion Books, 2018), “Introduction: People and Oceans” (pgs. 7-12) PDF
March 21: Steve Mentz, Ocean (Bloomsbury, 2020): “Deterritorializing Preface” (pgs. xv-xviii). –
Week 11: Cinematic Monsters and/as Environmental Crisis
March 26: Emilija Skarnulyte’s short film, Sironemelia (2017)
–Peer review of thesis statements for essay 2– bring print out to class
March 28: Emilija Skarnulyte’s short film, Sironemelia (2017)
Peer review of thesis statements for essay 2– bring print out
**Sunday, March 31 at midnight** Revisions of Essay #1 due, email to me.
**SPRING BREAK**
Week 12: The Ocean as Archive
April 9: Gabrielle Tesfaye, The Water will carry us home (stop motion animation, 2018)
April 11: Derek Walcott, “The Sea is History” (1978), poem
**Second Short Essay Assignment Due—– Sunday, 4/14 posted to the website by midnight—**
Week 13: Mami Wati and African Mermaids
April 16: Cristina Bacchilega and Marie Alohalani Brown, “African Mermaids and Other Water Spirits” (Penguin, pgs. 165-7)
“Aganju and Yemaja” (Penguin, p. 168-9)
“African Water Spirits in the Caribbean” (Penguin, p. 273-274)
“Ti Jeanne” (275-77)
April 18: Rivers Solomon, The Deep (novel, 2019): Chapters 1-4
Week 14: The Deep
April 23: Rivers Solomon, The Deep (2019): Chapters 5-7
April 25: : Rivers Solomon, The Deep (2019): Chapters 8-9, all of the book
Peer review of thesis statements for final essay– bring print out to class
Additional: Check out the recent exhibition, “From the Deep, in the Wate of Drexciya” at the National Museum of African Art (May 2023)
**Sunday 4/28- Final essay proposal due, at midnight**
—Revisions of Discovery # 2 also due– email to me
Week 15: Conclusions
April 30: Stephanie Burt, “We are Mermaids” (2022) [PDF], poem
Peer Review– bring to class a printed-out draft of your thesis statement for the final essay*
May 2: Conclusion
*Final Essay due, Thursday, May 9, at midnight, posted to the blog**
Extra credit blogs due 5/9 at midnight, posted to the blog**