Author Archives: Morgan Feltus

From Managing Nature to Living With It 

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Environmental problems are often treated as scientific failures. Climate change, water pollution, and species extinction are approached through data, improved infrastructure, and new forms of resource management. Yet despite decades of scientific research, global conditions continue to deteriorate. Knowing what is happening to the planet has not been enough to change how humans live within it. This reveals that the real problem is cultural. It forces us to ask not just what we are doing to the environment, but how we imagine our relationship to it in the first place. This is exactly where the environmental humanities intervene. In “The Emergence of the Environmental Humanities”, Emmett and Nye argue that scientific knowledge alone cannot solve the environmental crisis because the greatest barriers to change are cultural and shaped by behavior, values, and institutions rather than by a lack of information. They challenge the deeply rooted Western belief that nature is something humans can control, fix, or manage from the outside. Instead, they shift responsibility inward, toward the ways human actions structure the world. 

A similar challenge to the Western way of thinking is the African water spirit traditions seen in “African Mermaids and Other Water Spirits.” In these stories, rivers, lakes, and oceans are not seen as resources but as living beings with identity, personality, and power. Water spirits such as Yemoja or Mami Wata do not just live within the water, instead they are often understood to be the water itself. These traditions imagine the environment not as an object for extraction but as a real life presence that demands respect and care. Through myth, spirituality, and storytelling, African water worlds are able to construct an ethical relationship between humans and water.  Although these two texts come from very different intellectual and cultural traditions they both come to a very similar conclusion. Both challenge the idea that environmental crises can be solved through control alone, and both insist that how humans imagine nature directly shapes how they treat it. Together, “The Emergence of the Environmental Humanities” and “African Mermaids and Other Water Spirits” challenge the Western belief that humans “manage” nature by showing that environmental responsibility is shaped by culture and imagination rather than by technology alone. Through Emmet and Nye’s claim that humans only manage the behaviors that affect environmental systems, and through African water spirit traditions that personify rivers as living beings with identity and power, these texts reveal that the environmental crisis is not just a scientific failure but a cultural one. Together, they argue that sustainability depends on a shift from control to relationship, one that redefines water not as a resource to be used, but as a being we are responsible to. 

In “The Emergence of the Environmental Humanities”, Emmett and Nye challenge the assumption that the environmental crisis can be solved just by improving technology or collecting more scientific data. While they fully acknowledge the importance of scientific knowledge, they argue that science alone has never been enough to produce real environmental change because the real problem lies in how humans behave within the world. They locate the root of ecological collapse within human culture itself, within the behaviors, values, and institutions that shape how people act on what they already know. This idea becomes especially clear in their powerful statement “we do not manage the environment, only the behaviors that affect its structure and processes”. In this single sentence, Emmett and Nye completely flip the way we usually think about environmental responsibility and redirect attention away from nature itself and toward human culture. The sentence begins with the claim, “we do not manage the environment,” which immediately disrupts one of the most common assumptions in Western environmental thinking. The word “manage” usually implies control, authority, and the ability to fix something through planning and regulation. We talk about “managing” water, land, forests, and even climate impacts as if nature is a system that exists for humans to organize and correct. By denying that we can manage the environment at all, Emmett and Nye reject the idea that humans stand above nature as its controllers. The sentence then shifts with the word “only” to “the behaviors that affect its structure and processes.” The word “only” becomes a powerful boundary which limits what humans can actually control. We cannot control ecosystems, weather, or the planet itself, but we can control our behaviors. The word “behaviors” is intentionally broad, referring to everyday habits, systems of consumption, political decisions, and cultural norms. By framing environmental damage as the result of collective human behavior, Emmett and Nye move responsibility away from the natural world and onto society itself. Environmental harm is no longer something that just happens to us, it is something produced through our actions, patterns, and priorities. 

The final part of the sentence, “structure and processes” brings science back into the conversation. These words point to physical systems like climate, ecosystems, and natural cycles. By placing scientific language inside a sentence that is mostly about culture and behavior, Emmett and Nye show how closely connected science and the humanities really are. Science tells us how environmental systems work and how they are being disrupted, but the humanities help explain why people continue behaviors that cause that disruption. This shows us how scientific knowledge is not dismissed, but it is incomplete without cultural understanding.This idea becomes clear in the examples Emmett and Nye give of failed sustainability projects, especially the planned eco-city near Shanghai and the Huangbaiyu “ecovillage” in China. Both projects were designed with good environmental intentions and advanced technology, yet both failed because local people were never truly included in the process. Farmers were not consulted, daily lifestyles were misunderstood, and the designs did not fit the cultural or economic realities of the communities. As a result, many people refused to live in the new homes.These failures perfectly teach us that sustainability cannot succeed if it ignores human behavior, culture, and trust. Emmett and Nye reinforce this idea through their use of Tom Griffith’s observation that “scientists often argue for the need to overcome deficits of knowledge, but rarely ask why we do not act upon what we already know.” This quote shows one of the most frustrating contradictions of the environmental crisis.  We already know what is happening to the planet. We know about climate change, pollution, extinction, and water scarcity. Yet, knowledge alone clearly has not been enough to stop these patterns. The real challenges are cultural and within our economic priorities, political systems, comfort, convenience, and deeply ingrained habits that prevent meaningful change. Together, Emmett and Nye’s argument reshapes what environmental responsibility actually means. If humans do not manage the environment but only the behaviors that affect it, then the work of environmental care becomes ethical. The focus shifts from trying to “fix” nature to examining ourselves, our values, our choices, and the systems we continue to support. Environmental failure becomes a mirror reflecting the ways society understands (or misunderstands) its relationship with the natural world. This redefinition of responsibility also explains why so many environmental solutions struggle to succeed. Solar houses can be built, but people must be willing to live in them. Sustainable cities can be designed, but communities must be ready to adapt their daily lives. Scientific models can predict collapse, but prediction alone does not create care. Emmett and Nye ultimately argue that without a cultural shift and without changing how humans imagine their place in nature, environmental action will continue to fall short. 

In “African Mermaids and Other Water Spirits,” the relationship between humans and water is imagined in a completely different way than in most Western environmental thinking. Instead of being treated as a resource to control, extract, or manage, water is understood as alive and full of spirit, identity, and power. This idea is clearly shown in the line, “African water spirits often personify the source of water in which they live and sometimes bear the same name as the river in which they dwell.” Like Emmett and Nye’s statement about behavior and control, this sentence reshapes how responsibility toward the environment is understood. Through personification and spiritual relationship, the text presents water not as an object humans use, but as a being humans live with. The key word in this sentence is “personify.” To personify something is to give it life and personality. When rivers and lakes are personified through water spirits, they stop simply being an object and instead become an alive presence with their own will and power. Water is no longer just something that flows through space, it becomes someone. This mindshift completely alters the relationship between humans and the environment. You cannot casually pollute, dam, or drain something that you recognize as alive in the same way you recognize another person as alive. The line goes even further by saying that these spirits “bear the same name as the river in which they dwell.” This detail is especially important because it removes the boundary between the water and the being. The spirit is not just living inside the river, the river is the spirit. In Western worldviews, nature is often separated into physical matter on one side and meaning or value on the other. This line collapses that divide. Water is not just meaningful, it is a meaningful being. The river holds memory, identity, and presence, not just economic value. By naming rivers as spirits, the text shows how environmental responsibility becomes personal. A river with a name is not anonymous. It can be respected, remembered, honored, or violated. This creates a level of accountability that is often missing in Western environmental systems. When water is imagined as a named being rather than as a commodity, environmental harm becomes personal. Pollution is no longer just waste disposal, it becomes an act of disrespect. Damming becomes more than engineering, it becomes interference with a living force. The text later expands on this idea by showing how water spirits continue to appear in modern settings, especially near dams, construction zones, and development sites. These new sightings turn ancient traditions into present day warnings. They suggest that water has not lost its power just because modern infrastructure has changed the landscape. Instead, water spirits function as a kind of cultural warning system. They signal danger when water is being misused or disrespected. Long before environmental science developed language for ecosystem collapse these traditions already carried systems of care, caution, and accountability. 

What stands out most is how these stories regulate human behavior without relying on laws, policies, or scientific institutions. Rituals, taboos, and spiritual respect guide how people interact with water. You do not take more than needed. You do not treat water carelessly. You acknowledge its power. These practices show that sustainability does not always come from new technology, it can come in the form of relationships. In this way, African water spirit traditions already embody what Emmett and Nye argue Western cultures lack, which is, a way of shaping behavior through values and imagination rather than through control and domination. The personification of water also challenges the idea that nature is separate from human life. The spirits move between the human world and the natural world freely. They appear in dreams, stories, rituals, and daily life. This dissolves the nature and culture divide that Emmet and Nye critique throughout their work. Humans are not positioned outside the environment looking in. Instead, they are embedded within the living system. Most importantly, these African water traditions reshape what responsibility feels like. Responsibility in Western environmental thinking is often legal such as meeting emission limits or following specific regulations. In the world of water spirits, responsibility is emotional, spiritual, and personal. If you harm the river, you are not just breaking a rule, you are offending a being. Through this lens, water is not something to be “managed” at all. It is something to be honored, lived with, and approached carefully. 

When placed side by side, “The Emergence of the Environmental Humanities” and “African Mermaids and Other Water Spirits” reveal two very different ways of thinking about the environment, yet they both untimely lead to the same conclusion. Emmet and Nye are able to diagnose the environmental crisis as a failure of culture and behavior rooted in Western ideas of management and control. African water spirit traditions, on the other hand, offer a worldview in which water is imagined as a living being embedded in relationships of care, respect, and accountability. While one text is written through academic theory and the other through spiritual storytelling, both argue that how humans imagine nature determines how they treat it. In this way, these texts show that sustainability depends not only on science and policy, but on a deeper shift in imagination. Western environmental logic is built on the idea of management. Nature is positioned as something external to humans, something to be organized, monitored, extracted, and repaired. This logic assumes that humans stand above the environment as planners and problem solvers, controlling damage through innovation and regulation. Emmett and Nye directly challenge this mindset when they argue that “we do not manage the environment, only the behaviors that affect its structure and processes.” Their claim exposes how deeply flawed the logic of control truly is. If humans cannot manage nature itself, then every attempt to “fix” the environment without changing behavior is bound to fall short. The problem is not just what technology we use, but the worldview that tells us nature is something to control in the first place. African water spirit traditions offer the opposite assumption. Instead of control, they prioritize relationships. Water is not imagined as a resource, but as a being with identity, power, and presence. Through personification and naming, rivers and lakes become moral beings rather than just materials to use. This worldview does not rely on management systems and data collection to produce care. Instead, it uses story, ritual, and spiritual meaning to shape behavior. Where Western systems attempt to enforce sustainability through external rules, water spirit traditions cultivate responsibility from within through relationships. This comparison shows us that imagination itself functions as environmental infrastructure. Emmett and Nye argue that cultural systems shape behavior more powerfully than scientific knowledge alone, while African water spirit traditions demonstrate exactly how that shaping happens. When water is imagined as alive, behavior toward water changes. When water is imagined as a resource, exploitation becomes normal. Imagination is not separate from the environment; instead, it actively structures it. Both texts ultimately reject the idea that humans exist outside of nature as managers. Instead, they insist that humans are embedded within environmental systems, whether through climate processes or through spiritual relationships with water. This shared rejection of separation is crucial. When humans are imagined as separate from the environment, it becomes easier to justify extraction, pollution, and domination. When humans are imagined as part of a living system, responsibility becomes unavoidable. What unites these two texts most strongly is their shared claim that the environmental crisis is not just a scientific breakdown, but an imaginative one. Emmett and Nye show how Western culture has organized itself around control, efficiency, and dominance. African water spirit traditions reveal what it looks like to organize a culture around relationship, respect, and accountability. Together, they suggest that real sustainability will never come from better machines alone, it must also come from better stories, better values, and better ways of imagining our place in the world.  

Climate change, water pollution, dam construction, and water scarcity are often discussed through numbers, charts, and projections. We measure rising sea levels, track drought patterns, and debate emissions targets. All of this data is important, but as Emmett and Nye make clear, knowing what is happening to the planet does not automatically change how humans behave within it. The environmental crisis persists not because we lack information, but because the dominant cultural imagination still treats nature as something separate, manageable, and ultimately disposable.This is what makes both “The Emergence of the Environmental Humanities” and “African Mermaids and Other Water Spirits” so important. Together, these texts show that environmental collapse is not just a scientific emergency, it is a cultural and imaginative one. Emmett and Nye reframe environmental responsibility by reminding us that we do not manage the environment itself, only the behaviors that shape it. This shift forces accountability back onto human choices, values, and systems rather than onto the planet as something to be “fixed.” At the same time, African water spirit traditions reveal what it looks like to live inside a worldview where water is not an object but a living presence. When rivers are spirits, and water has a name and a personality, environmental harm becomes personal and care becomes relational. These texts reveal that sustainability depends on how humans imagine their place in the world. If water is imagined as a resource, it will be used, controlled, and eventually exhausted. If water is imagined as a being, it will be approached with respect, caution, and reciprocity. These are not just symbolic differences, they shape real behavior, real systems, and real consequences. Stories, myths, and cultural beliefs function as powerful tools that regulate how people act long before policies or technologies enter the picture. Ultimately, these texts show that the environmental crisis is an imaginative one. How we picture water, either as a resource or as a being, shapes the behaviors that determine its future. Emmett and Nye show why scientific knowledge alone cannot change a culture built on control, while African water spirit traditions offer a model of responsibility grounded in relationship. Together, they suggest that real sustainability begins with reimagining our place in the world. Before we can heal the planet, we have to change the stories we tell about it.

Final Blog

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I honestly didn’t know what to expect going into this class. I knew it was an environmental literature class, but after finding out we focus on that through the lens of mermaids I was even more excited. Before finding out we had a theme of mermaids, I thought this class would just be based on writing about nature and talk of climate change but I ended up getting so much more out of it! I really enjoyed this class and I think that’s mostly because of how much I learned through our discussions. Every text we read showed me a new way of thinking about the environment, human responsibility, history, and power. Even when I didn’t fully understand a reading at first, our conversations helped me see it differently. 

If I had to name my biggest takeaway from this class, it would be that humans and nature are NOT separate. This idea sounds simple at first, but it completely changes how you see the world. So many of the texts we read pushed back against the idea that humans exist over here and “nature” exists over there. Instead, they kept showing how tangled together everything actually is and how our choices, economies, stories, histories, and the land itself are all connected as one.

Before this class, I think I unconsciously saw nature as something you go into, visit, protect, or escape to. Now I see it as something I am already inside of all the time. What we eat, what we buy, where we live, how we travel, and even what we value all shape the environment in real ways. At the same time, the environment shapes us and our health, culture, fears, and futures. There is no clean line between the two.

That’s why this idea is so important. If we believe humans and nature are separate, it becomes easier to exploit land, ignore environmental damage, and treat environmental issues as optional or distant. But once you realize we’re part of the same system, environmental harm is no longer something happening “out there.” It’s something happening to us, too. That shift makes responsibility feel personal . 

This class taught me that environmental stories aren’t just about trees, oceans, or animals, they’re about people, power, memories and connection. I’m leaving this class with a new perspective and I now know how important it is for us as a society to change our cultures to protect the earth in which we depend on to survive.

Final Essay Proposal

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For my final essay, I am going to sort of combine my ideas from discovery 2 and a blog from week 13. I want to focus on how both Emmett and Nye and the reading on African water spirits rethink the relationship between humans and the environment, especially through the idea of water as something alive. I’m planning to use close readings from both texts to show how each one gives water a kind of identity. I’ll use Emmett and Nye’s line about managing behavior and the examples of water spirits who “personify the source of water” to show how these ideas challenge the mindset of controlling or using nature. My argument will be that both texts suggest environmental problems come from culture and imagination, not from nature itself. By treating water as a being we’re in relationship with, these offer a more ethical and sustainable way of thinking about environmental responsibility.

Managing Behavior, Not Nature 

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Environmental problems are often treated as issues that can be solved with new technology or better policies. Governments create climate plans, engineers design renewable energy systems, and scientists collect data to understand change. Yet even with all this knowledge, progress remains slow. In “The Emergence of the Environmental Humanities”, Emmett and Nye argue that the problem is not what we know about the environment, but how we act on that knowledge. When humans talk about “managing” the environment, the word usually means control. Having control in this sense means having something humans can plan, regulate and fix. However after reading this text, Emmet and Nye turn the attention away from managing nature itself and toward managing the systems of ideas and actions that shape how people live within it. Emmett and Nye redefine environmental “management” as the management of human action; through the claim that “we do not manage the environment, only the behaviors that affect its structure and processes,” the text shifts action from ecosystems to culture, arguing that environmental failure is a problem of values, behaviors and institutions. 

 This statement gets rid of the idea that people can control nature as if it is something that’s separate and reframes the idea that if we want to see change it must be as a collective whole. The language reveals exactly how they reframe the idea of environmental control. The sentence begins with “We do not manage the environment”. This phrase challenges the cultural assumption that ecosystems can be organized and controlled like human systems. The word “manage” usually implies authority and predictability, as if nature is an object that can be adjusted or improved. By denying that we can “manage the environment” it means that we must shift our responsibilities from controlling ecosystems to understanding ourselves. We as humans are able to control our behaviors, consumption and culture that can shape our environmental outcomes.

The language in the next part of the phrase, “only the behaviors that affect…” brings the focus from the external world to human action. The word “only” is super restrictive and it draws a line around what can actually be changed meaning what is manageable. Emmet and Nye suggest that it’s not the planet itself but the social, political, and cultural forces that shape it. The word “behaviors” stands for patterns of consumption, policy decisions and different social norms. This phrasing reframes environmental work as an ethical and cultural practice rather than a technical one and to see sustainability not as a matter of better machines but as a matter of better habits. Finally, the phrase ends with “… structure and processes” and this reintroduces the scientific side. It describes the natural systems such as climate and ecosystems that have a response with human activity. Emmet and Nye’s language shows how the environmental humanities work alongside science. Science teaches us how the environmental systems function, while the humanities interpret and influence the behaviors that determine whether those systems thrive or collapse. This pairing of human behavior and environmental systems shows that the two are inseparable. The phrase “structure and processes” sounds scientific, but when placed after “behaviors,” it reminds us that every scientific system reflects human influence. This is exactly what the environmental humanities seeks to prove and that is that no ecosystem is isolated from our culture.

This shift from control to behavior is clearly shown in this reading with the examples of failed top-down projects such as the eco-city near Shanghai and the Huangbaiyu “ecovillage. Both cities were designed with advanced technology and good intentions, yet neither one was successful because the planners ignored the local voices. The designs overlooked what daily life looked like. They ignored farmers’ routines, affordability and cultural ideas. These cities revealed that sustainability cannot be imposed on anyone and instead it depends on understanding how people live and what they value. This reflects the quote and how technical process means very little if human behavior, trust and participation are not a part of the plan. 

Throughout the reading, Emmet and Nye state that knowledge alone is never enough. They cite Tom Griffiths, who said that “Scientists often argue for the need to overcome deficits of knowledge, but rarely ask why we do not act upon what we already know. Most of the constraints working against environmental change are cultural.” This reinforces Emmett and Nye’s claim that the greatest barriers to sustainability are not technical but human. It connects directly to the quote by showing that knowing how ecosystems work does little unless people change their behaviors, policies, and sense of responsibility. By turning the focus to behavior it emphasizes the role of meaning, ethics and communication which is the core of humanities. In the end, the quote “We do not manage the environment, only the behaviors that affect its structure and processes” becomes more than a simple observation. It’s a redefinition of responsibility. It forced me to stop looking at nature as an object and start recognizing the connection between human actions and environmental change. It also teaches readers that addressing climate change or extinction is not about controlling nature but about transforming our culture.

Human and Nature Relationships

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In the text “African Mermaids and Other Water Spirits”, one line that stood out to me right away was “African water spirits often personify the source of water in which they live…” This sentence shows how humans relate to their environment. By saying water spirits “personify” rivers, lakes and springs, it shows that these water systems are not treated as objects or resources for us to use but instead with identity and power. This reveals how African culture often turns nature into a living presence and how that understanding shapes their behavior, respect and responsibility toward water. 

When a river is imagined as a spirit, especially a powerful goddess like Yemoja or Mami Wata it becomes something you have a relationship with. You would never pollute a river that you have a relationship with or take from a lake without acknowledging the spirits that live within it. By using personification it creates more of an ethical framework. Nature isn’t separate from people, instead it becomes a part of our social world. This challenges the idea of “managing nature”, where water is usually being controlled or extracted. The text made it clear that many African traditions instead “manage” the relationship between humans and the environment through different rituals, respect and storytelling.

Another important part of that quote is that these spirits “bear the same name as the river in which they dwell.” This shows how identity and landscape are woven together. The river isn’t just home to the spirit, the river IS the spirit. This gets rid of the boundary between physical and spiritual, reminding people that water isn’t simply a background element of life. It has personality, identity and memory. When the reading later describes modern stories of mermaid sightings at dams or construction sites, it becomes clear that these beliefs still act as warnings. If water is alive, then disturbing it such as building dams, diverting rivers, polluting lakes will risk messing with the spirit. 

What I find most interesting is how this worldview builds a sense of accountability. If you misuse water, something will happen. Personification makes environmental harm feel personal. The quote reminds us that many African cultures already had systems for protecting water long before modern sustainability conversations. Seeing a river as a spirit isn’t just a myth , it’s a cultural technology for care and responsibility. In the end, the line reveals that water spirits aren’t just folklore. They are part of a larger idea that treats nature as alive, interconnected, and deserves respect and honestly, that view feels more sustainable than the one we’re living with today.  

The Sea as History

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In Derek Walcott’s “The Sea Is History” one line that really stood out to me was “Bone scolded by coral to bone”. This line comes in the part that is describing the middle passage which was the forced journey of enslaved Africans across the Atlantic Ocean. This shows us that human loss becomes part of the natural world. When Walcott chooses to blend bone and coral and death and growth it shows us that the sea doesn’t just hide history, it transforms it. Walcott is suggesting that the Caribbean’s identity is literally built on the remains of its past. 

When Walcott writes of bones “soldered” by coral he turns the ocean into both a graveyard and an artist. “Soldered” is usually a word used in metalwork. It means to fuse pieces together permanently. By using this word it makes me think that the sea itself is welding different fragments of lives into a new creation. The coral becomes a natural sculptor that binds human remains into living coral reefs. In this poem, death doesn’t end the story, it becomes a foundation for a new life to begin in an ecosystem that keeps growing. The bones are never truly gone; they now become a part of the sea’s body. 

This line also shows us how history in the Caribbean isn’t written in books, it’s embedded in the landscapes. When Walcott says the sea “has locked them up” he’s talking about memories being submerged but not erased. The coral literally covers the bones of the enslaved and preserves them. This is sort of like a natural archive that holds memory in silence instead of language. For Walcott, the sea is beautiful but inseparable from the violence that shaped it. When you look at the ocean you don’t just see water but centuries of hidden stories. 

By fusing bones and coral, this poem brings the idea that history is something that is separate from nature. The Caribbean’s landscape is historical because it carries physical evidence of what happened. The line “bone soldered by coral to bone” captures the scary truth that the past is never gone. It’s still there living quietly beneath the surface. The Caribbean’s history is not shown in books but in the coral’s slow but persistent growth. 

The Sea as a Mirror

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While reading “The Blue Humanities” a line that really stood out to me was “the sea became a mirror that landlubbers used to reflect on their own condition” This shows how people started using the ocean as a way to think about themselves. Instead of the ocean being seen as something distant and dangerous, the ocean became a reflection of human emotions and identities. John Gills is saying that the ocean tells us more about who we are then about the ocean itself.   

Before this idea shift people mostly saw the ocean as a scary, unknown place. A “dark dead zone” or “unfathomable abyss.” It was only a place you crossed to get somewhere else. Eventually, once fewer people worked at sea, artists and writers started to look at it differently. The text says they “turned their full attention to the sea itself”, giving it “a higher aesthetic power”. Gills calls this change the “sublimation of the sea” and it turned the ocean into a kind of emotional or spiritual place. 

When Gills calls the sea a “mirror” it connects to today’s world’s uncertainty. In our industrial and fast changing society people want something that feels steady and eternal. The text points out how the sea’s horizon represents “a steadfast future, an immutable eternity”. At the same time, the ocean’s constant movement mirrors how unpredictable and unstable life feels. This makes the ocean feel both comforting and unsettling. I think this may reflect how humans sometimes feel lost but still search for something bigger than themselves. 

Reading this text made me realize how imagination can replace direct experiences.  “Even those who never crossed the tide line,” Gill says, still used ocean language and metaphors to describe life on land. This could mean that the less people actually knew the ocean, the more it filled their stories and art. This means that the ocean isn’t just water, it’s a symbol of how humans project their own feelings onto nature. The “blue humanities” teaches us that we need to understand the ocean and maybe the entire planet itself through self reflection. In this text, the oceans become a mirror for modern life. It’s vast, changeable and full of whatever meaning we want/need it to be. 

Undine and the Living World of Nature

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Undine and the Living World of Nature

Many struggle and face emotions of lacking belonging, despite having community. In “The Day After the Wedding, from Undine,” Undine’s description of the elemental spirits reveals how humanity views nature and the earth as alive and full of personality, yet separate from themselves. Each element being given human traits makes nature both feel more familiar and more mysterious. This is a reflection of Undine’s own identity feeling stuck between two worlds. This suggests that the story is really asking whether the boundary between humans and nature exists at all, and given Undine’s struggles not feeling a part of either world despite being caught between the two means there is no real boundary between humans and nature; only one the imagination creates 

Undine tells her husband, “There are beings in the elements which almost appear like mortals, and which rarely allow themselves to become visible to your race. Wonderful salamanders glitter and sport in the flames; lean and malicious gnomes dwell deep under the earth; spirits, belonging to the air, wander through the forests; and a vast family of water spirits live in the lakes and streams and brooks”(Penguin 103). Here, she describes them in a way that makes nature seem almost like it’s alive and aware of itself. She organizes nature into different categories. Some spirits sound enchanting while others feel dangerous but they all align to “your race” meaning human beings. This separation creates the idea that these creatures are like humans but not quite, which makes them something mysterious but beyond human control. This reflects Undine’s identity as someone who exists between two worlds. One human and one elemental. 

When Undine begins describing these spirits, she speaks with a type of power, as if she’s telling the human world a secret. She says, “there are beings in the elements which appear almost like mortals, and which rarely allow themselves to become visible to your race”. When she says “almost like mortals” it suggests both similarity and difference at the same time. These spirits are not fully human but they aren’t completely different either. They seem to exist on the edge of what humans can recognize, close enough to share similarities but strange enough to stay mysterious. The word “rarely” shows the control the spirits have as they “allow” themselves to be seen, meaning that nature can decide when to reveal itself. This gives power to the natural world because it’s something that humans will never be able to fully control or understand. Instead, nature chooses when to be visible, when to interact, and when to stay hidden. 

Undine then goes on to describe each type of elemental being. She says “Wonderful salamanders glitter and sport in the flames; and malicious gnomes dwell within the earth; spirits belonging to the air wander through the forests; and a vast family of water spirits live in the lakes and streams and brooks.” Each element, fire, air and water come alive with different movements and behavior. When she says “glitter”, “sport” and “wander” she gives the elements a sort of energy that makes the natural world feel expressive. Even the gnomes, who are described as “malicious,” show that nature has moods and emotions because it’s not always peaceful. By giving each element its own personality, Fouqué is able to humanize nature without taking away its wildness. He creates a world that feels enchanted but also believable, as if every part of nature has its own community with its own emotions. 

This specific passage made me change the way I think about the relationship between humans and nature. Usually, people see nature as something that’s separate. Something to look at, control or use. However, in Undine’s description, that separation doesn’t really exist. The natural world has its own personalities and emotions. Humans just happen to live alongside it. I think this makes the world Undine lives in almost feel like the human world thinks it’s in charge and the elemental just secretly shapes everything around it. The spirits “rarely allow themselves to become visible,” but that doesn’t mean they aren’t there. It just means humans have forgotten how to see them.

Undine becomes the bridge between these two worlds. She reminds us that she belongs to the water spirits but she has to explain this unknown reality to her husband and try to make him understand a world that he’s never seen. Undine’s description of the elemental spirits also reflects her own inner conflict. She knows the world she’s talking about because she’s part of it. She belongs to the water spirits she describes, but at the same time, she has to explain that world to her human husband, which shows how far away she’s drifted from it. She’s caught between knowing and explaining, between belonging to nature and trying to fit into the human world. This mirrors her identity throughout the story. She wants to love and live like a human, something the elemental spirits can’t do, but that wish also separates her from the world she came from.

There’s also something spiritual about how Undine describes these beings. They are not just “creatures” of nature, they are beings each with their own spark. The natural world in Undine isn’t just a collection of physical elements, it’s full of souls. This suggests that spiritual life exists everywhere, not just in humans. The way Undine speaks about these spirits gives nature a moral and emotional sense that challenges the idea of human superiority. The natural world becomes something sacred, deserving of respect and wonder, not human domination.Fouque doesn’t just use Undine’s words to create a fantasy world; he uses them to question the way humans see themselves in relation to nature. If there are spirits “almost like mortals” in fire, earth, air, and water, then humans are not separate from nature at all, they are just one kind of being among many. Undine’s description forced me to see the environment not as something outside of us, but as something that shares our emotions, our struggles, and maybe even our souls with. This moment in Undine stands out because it redefines what it means to be alive. It made me imagine a world where the natural elements have consciousness and purpose. Through Undine’s voice, Fouqué suggests that the boundary between humans and nature is something humans invented to feel special, but actually, we’re part of the same living system. Undine’s words remind us that nature isn’t silent. It’s full of stories, life, and emotions that we’ve simply forgotten how to hear.

Humans Shape the Environment

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In The Emergence of Environmental Humanities, Emmett and Nye cite a line from an Australian coastal manager. They said “We do not manage the environment, only the behaviors that affect its structure and processes”. This shows one of the key ideas of the environmental humanities which is that we must see that environmental problems are at their core, human problems. This quote gets rid of the idea that people can control nature as if it is something that’s separate and it reframes the idea that if we want to see change it must be in OUR values, habits and institutions. 

The word “manage” usually means control or authority. By denying that we can “manage the environment” it means that we must shift our responsibilities from controlling ecosystems to understanding ourselves. We as humans are able to control our behaviors, consumption and culture that can shape our environmental outcomes. Emmet and Nye talked about the failed eco city near Shanghai and the Huangbaiyu village project. Both of these were technological solutions that collapsed because the planners ignored the local community. This shows us that environmental sustainability cannot be planned from “the top down” instead it requires cultural participation. 

The phrasing “structure and processes” is also super important. It brings out the scientific language but also links it to human behavior. It explains that the environmental humanities mission is to bridge scientific understanding with cultural interpretation. The problem is not lack of data or information about something such as biodiversity but it’s a failure to act on that knowledge. By emphasizing behavior, the quote brings more of an emotional and ethical response not just a technical one.    

This also shows that there can be limits when it comes to technological “fixes”. For example, Emmett and Nye say that we can design and build solar houses and energy efficient cities but convincing the public to build it or live in it is not a scientific issue, but a cultural issue. This is when the humanities comes in, it helps us understand desires and meaning. To “manage” behavior means we must engage in values and identities that make sustainable choses feel possible and worth something.  

This quote made me think about what environmental responsibility really means. It forced me to stop looking at nature as an object and start recognizing the connection between human actions and environmental change.​​ The environmental humanities emerge as a practical approach that’s grounded in empathy, communication and a collective self awareness.

Humanity comes with a cost

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The scene that stood out to me the most in Hans Christan Andersen’s “The Little Mermaid” was when the mermaid drinks the potion given to her by the Sea Witch that will transform her and give her human legs. This moment isn’t described as a magical transformation but as an act of suffering. The text says “The little mermaid drank the sharp and burning potion, and it seemed as if a two edged sword was run though her delicate frame. She fainted away, and remained apparently lifeless”. This description makes it clear that becoming human isn’t a beautiful or effortless process. Andersen turns what could have been a peaceful fairy tale moment into a scary and painful experience. 

The language in this scene connects physical pain with spiritual transformation. The mermaid doesn’t just change from, she sacrifices a part of her identity. Her tail symbolizes freedom and her connection to nature but by replacing her tail with human legs she now feels intense pain with each step she takes. This suggests that by gaining humanity whether physically, emotionally or spiritually it will come with a cost. The mermaid’s suffering becomes sort of an initiation into the human world where love and pain are inseparable.   

I also think it’s significant that the mermaid’s pain is something she goes through in silence. She has already given up her voice to the Sea Witch so her suffering goes unspoken. Anderson uses this silence to show the importance of her commitment and how much she is willing to endure for love. It also makes me wonder if the silence reflects certain expectations that are placed on women to bear pain gracefully and quietly. The mermaid’s transformation is both a personal act of courage as well as a reflection on our world that sometimes values beauty and obedience over self expression. 

Throughout the entire passage, Andersen turns a fantasy story into something that is human like. The mermaid’s suffering isn’t meaningless, it’s what makes her a creature of the sea. Her pain is the price of consciousness, desire and soil. By making this transformation hurt it suggests that in order to grow or transcend into a new world, something must be lost. In the mermaid’s case, she loses her identity and her suffering becomes a bridge between two worlds. The natural and the spiritual worlds and through it she becomes something entirely new.