Tag Archives: week 15

Week 15: We Are Mermaids

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Reading this poem felt like a breather in a way. I really enjoyed the feelings it gave me like a peace of mind, an escape from my current life, but also to picture my life in a different way. There was a specific part of the poem that stuck with me, “It has been there since before the beginning of tragedy”. It put into perspective how big, impactful, and strong the Ocean truly is but yet it’s still neglected for what it really is. It made me stop to think what does the Ocean know that humans don’t? What is the Oceans endurance to the damage that is always done to it? From this single stanza I was able to see how my life and what I think are “major” problems are really a speck in comparison to this huge body of water.

Another point in the poem that made me picture life in a different place was, “You can spend your life benthic, or brackish” as it makes me question if life in water is possible? I decided to look up the word benthic which is simply anything that is at the bottom of a body of water and I couldn’t help to think about the mermaid stories we’ve read and how they all take place living at the bottom of the sea. So can this mean that living at the bottom of the Ocean is indeed possible? How would life be down there? Or is there already life right under our noses? This poem brought out so many questions to me as it lets me try to picture things in a different lens as anything was possible instead of being impossible.

Week 15: Conclusions/What I Learned

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The moment I saw a mermaid on the syllabus I just knew it would change and shift my perspectives. I have never in my academic career equated the environment with being anything more than a dormant and dead piece of matter that happens to give us structure to walk on and build on; nothing more. This preconceived notion was completely blown up by the literature we interacted with throughout the entire semester; and not only that but the texts made me question and identify how those conceptions were constructed in the first place. Why did I think all mermaids were white? Why was I so disconnected to the environment? Who convinced me that nature mattered less than me? Who taught me that I was apart from nature and not a part? All of these reevaluations entered my head throughout my time in each lecture.

Each text was very rich in culture and information but my favorite and most notable were the texts regarding the Blue Humanities. As an English major, I am often queried about what I want to do with an English degree; Do you want to be a teacher? What can you do with that? The Blue Humanities connects literature with the environment, evoking emotional connectivity, historically rich texts, and a projects an urge to reconnect with the environment. The genre of the Blue Humanities is able to understand that humans are very emotionally intelligent and when one connects these emotions to the environment, a “lifeless” mute piece of earth, one may cultivate care and respect towards our home. All of this action was inspired through various forms of literature, words, language, rhetoric; all encompassing traits that make up what an English major practices every day. This class made me feel like I chose a very important major that could give me the tools to change perceptions and maybe even the world. (That was corny, I know😭)

Week 15: Conclusion

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This class has been mindfully-transformative from the various topics and discussions of how they connect. Discovering the various connections that literature has with the environment through learning about mermaids has been so unique and beautiful. I have learned so much about history, cultures, science, and writing and it has been so inspiring and so fun. My interest has peaked in many different things that we have covered and I love seeing how passionately everything was taught. This will be a class that I will remember forever, and I’m really sad that it has come to an end! I look forward to taking more classes with you in the upcoming semesters 🤍🥹

Week 15 — We Are Mermaids

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This week’s poem, ‘We Are Mermaids’ by Stephanie Burt was super epic. Upon my first reading, I believe the author is trying to say to simply live your life on your own terms and do what makes you happy. In the first stanza, Burt compares the salt of human tears to the salt of the ocean, and in the second line relates both to the concept of sadness, but without sadness there would be no space for happiness. The third line goes on to relate the ocean to birth, which is typically a pretty incredible and happy time in someones life. On top of that, if we trace back the origin of the human race, it came out of the water a long time ago. And to further that, animals are constantly being birthed in the ocean every second of every day. To really hammer in this comparison, the ocean is often referred to as mother nature, which again relates back to the idea of birthing and motherhood. One part that got me super stoked was the part about the thermophiles. Although not entirely the same, it made me think of the extremophiles that we saw living in the radioactive waters in Sirenomelia. The introduction of thermophiles in this poem relates to the idea of being different, and being different does not mean bad, it really just means different. It goes on to say that these thermophiles live in the ocean too, and inhabit the same big old Ocean that mermaids, sharks, and all other aquatic beings do as well. “They are both predators and prey” (Burt, Line 19) means although they are different, they still fit in and actively participate in the food chain. And to be completely honest, if they didn’t exist it would throw off the balance of the food chain in the ocean. “You don’t have to be useful. You are not required to come up with something to say” (Burt, Lines 21-23) reinforces the original claim I made that this poem is about being you for the sake of being you and being happy with that decision. I think she is trying to say that you don’t have to conform or always have an idea, it’s simply okay to be who you are.

Week 15: We are Mermaids

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I really enjoyed reading this poem because it forced me to reconsider the way that society tells us we have to live. The use of the ocean in this poem creates a peaceful image that encourages readers to slow down in their lives and not feel pressured to be as on the go as society tells us we need to be. The stanza that starts with “You can spend your life benthic, or brackish,” created this image of existing underwater and when I think of being underwater, I think of how quiet everything gets. There is no noise from cars or people, just the sounds of the ocean which are calming. In the ocean, there is only nature and the natural cycles of life. There is nothing that would show “success” in the eyes of society. This stanza made me consider how society puts pressure on us to be successful, but who gets to decide what being successful looks like? Maybe for one person success looks like being content with their life and for another person, it looks like having a certain lifestyle.

The third stanza also made me think of society’s rules or expectations. There is a very specific timeline that society tells us that we need to achieve certain milestones by and this stanza challenges that. The lines that say “sacrificing their poise for their careers, / need not be the only mode of living” make the reader think of their life beyond what society encourages. Working is important and necessary, but there is more to a person’s life than their career. These lines emphasize the need to not sacrifice so much of your life for something that does not reward or fulfill you. We are not bound by the limits that society places on us and this poem reminds readers of that. 

Week 15: Home Sweet Home

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There’s something so–for lack of a better term–poetic about a poem describing an inhospitable land and the kind of creatures that would call it home, especially with the context of the poet Stephanie Burt’s identity as a trans woman and an advocate for the LGBTQIA+ community.

The setting of the poem describes the underwater sea vents where microbial and aquatic life has adapted to the harsh, sulfuric waters that could kill anything unprepared–or rather, unadapted–for the environment they live in. The phrase, “They love it here” resonates with me because it serves as a sort of reframing for me as I read the poem. This class has taught me so much about narrative, perspective, and the reframing of it. To me, these underwater sea vents are inhospitable. If the pressure from going so deep underwater doesn’t kill me, then the sulfur streams will. But to the thermophiles, the zoarchids, and the eelpouts, this environment doesn’t just give them life–it sustains them. They live in this environment, not just survive. Because they live in this environment, why wouldn’t they love the life that this environment brings? These organisms wouldn’t thrive in a different depth zone than the one they live in now.

But of course, Burt isn’t talking about strange-looking deep sea creatures and hardy microbiomes. Not really. This poem takes on an outsider’s perspective, the perspective of a person who exists on the fringes of society rather than existing in the midst of it, the perspective of someone who is considered freakish to others simply because of their existence, the perspective of someone who lives in an “inhospitable” land, has “adapted” to it, and “thrives” in it, despite this land’s and its people’s marginalization.

It’s a very powerful metaphor for the members of the LGBTQIA+ community who have been ostracized by the cisgender, heterosexual, societal norms for their existences outside of perceived societal binaries but have thrived in their communities and spaces and revel in their differences instead of reviling them.

Concluding Thoughts

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This was by far the best college classroom experience I’ve had thus far.

I was a little nervous about starting this semester. I had no idea what a course about mermaids in literature would entail. I had never been interested in the subject, and I had no idea how enthralled I would become by it. I believe that if the class had been given by another professor, I would have missed the underlying relevance of these stories. Professor Pressman did an excellent job of making the class an engaging one to be a part of, and this was the first class in which I actually wanted to participate. Getting to know the text with you all has been fantastic, and it’s a shame it’s coming to an end.

One thing I didn’t expect from a Literature and Environment course was to learn so much about myself and my views. I didn’t anticipate to delve as deeply into human history as we did, and my perspective on the world changed as a result of our global studies of human values. This class, like any other history course, taught me to look at topics like sexism, religion, and capitalism from different perspectives. A quote I frequently thought about during these readings came from Detective Rust Cole in season 1 of True Detective, who says, “Certain linguistic anthropologists believe that religion is a language virus that rewrites the pathways in the brain, dulls critical thinking.” I believe this remark, while pessimistic as hell, accurately captures the mental state that many of these readings have put me in. Religion has spread many of our outdated beliefs, and religious populations have had the same societal framework for millennia. I’m rambling a lot, but I just wanted to highlight how deeply this class struck a chord with me, and I’m thankful I got to share this experience with you.

Thank you everyone!

Final Thesis Proposal

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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.

week fifteen: the Deep Again

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So our girl Yetu was rescued by humans, which I find an interesting take on the mermaid mythos because usually its the mermaid who does the rescuing? Like how in the Little Mermaid, the mermaid in there rescued the prince from drowning, but in The Deep, Yetu’s being fed and looked after.

Also her relationship to Oori is interesting to me, because its this book’s instance of the two worlds meeting in the middle- both grapple with companionship as well as the past. I think Oori continuing to ensure that her homeland stays up despite being the last of her entire group/kin is important because in a way, it ties into the whole “ocean is an archive” thing- she’s ensuring that her history stays up, and that there IS a homeland that exists out there for her to return to. In way, Oori represents the idea that it is one’s duty to ensure that their history stays remembered. Yetu is a sort of a parallel because her entire culture is based on the idea that only ONE person should remember so everyone else can forget, and like… The way they contrast each other in this aspect is interesting.

Both were essentially forced into being the upholders, the historians, and yet they have such different approaches to how they do this. This is such a refreshing take on the mermaid tale and I’m really enjoying it so far.