Discovery #2

Posted on November 16, 2025 by Jazmine Vargas

For my discovery I want to highlight the short film Sirenomelia by Emilija Škarnulytė. The post-apocalyptic setting emphasizes how nature, and the mermaid as its symbol, endures beyond human collapse, turning the abandoned man-made facility into proof that humanity is gone but the natural world continues to adapt and survive.

In the short film, the man-made building is a decommissioned NATO submarine base above the Arctic Circle that seems abandoned by humans on land, but underwater there is plenty of marine biology thriving. According to the photo above from the film, the facility proves that it is decaying because the equipment on both decks have some rusting beginning to occur and not to mention there is no upkeep on the cleanliness of their flooring. Notice the lack of human appearance? That’s on purpose to decenter humans and focus on how resilient nature is that it has outlasted them in this post apocalyptic world. Again referring to the film still, the mere-being is swimming along the surface of the water, meaning that they aren’t shy of their appearance and no human can push back against their species.Throughout the film, no humans appear, which we aren’t used to. Have you noticed that even nature documentaries that are supposed to focus on wildlife still have human influence because they manipulate the camera and what they want to show, with an occasional shot of a filmographer trying not to interact with the approaching wildlife to “maintain” authenticity of the animals behavior. Sirenomelia has introduced us to a new perspective of viewing species which is allowing the mere-being to be autonomous about what they want shown and controlling their own narrative. Something that is truly unique and adds to the post apocalyptic sense of the world.

The quiet power being depicted by the mere-being and the shots of aquatic flora sets the tone for how deceiving it can be assuming everything will end once humans die off, but instead they flourish without limitations. Referring to the film still again, while recognizing how evident it is to point out the mere-being in the water swimming. We have to acknowledge the sentiment behind this simple action, it’s their habitat now. Despite it being a decaying submarine base, nature will evolve and will continue to outlive humans, who are insistent on destroying their habitat for personal gain. Adapting is their power of persevering through all the man-made inventions on their land and in their water.

The mere-being is the symbol of nature and how it will always persevere because that’s what they’ve done for millions of years. Their evolution won’t stop and as long as the postapocalyptic world continues to exist, they will too. The mere-being is living proof that outliving humans pushes us off that pedestal thinking the world revolves around us, but rather really focuses on the incredible evolution of nature and how when their world changes so do they. Throughout the film, there is a quietness that can seem eerie to us, humans, but it’s natural for the mere-being and other marine biology living there. It’s an emphasis on how taking humans out the equation can bring calmness and balance to nature. It’s a noisy world when humans are involved and with the proof of this film it shows how great the world will continue to thrive with humans being extinct.

Sirenomelia has executed the idea of humans being temporary but nature is adaptable. Their lens is a wake up call that humans aren’t at the top of the food chain and a new order has been instilled, which is that nature will always succeed us.

Works Cited:

Škarnulytė, Emilija. “Sirenomelia.” YouTube, 2 Aug. 2017, youtu.be/foH0QGuC3kY?si=aO7_SCVfklfcKI1c. Accessed 16 Nov. 2025.

Sacred Texts, Silenced Histories in “The Sea is History”

Posted on November 16, 2025 by Alyssa Robledo

Derek Walcott’s “The Sea is History” uses biblical structure not simply as a stylistic choice but as a critical framework for analyzing how Western powers recorded, interpreted, and ultimately controlled history in the Caribbean. Walcott’s references to Genesis, Exodus, the Ark of the Covenant, and Lamentations reconstruct a familiar Christian chronology. However, he fills each biblical moment with the events of colonialism, slavery, and cultural destruction. By structuring the poem as a distorted biblical timeline–moving from Genesis and Lamentations–Walcott critiques how colonial and Christian narratives have overwritten indigenous and African histories. Walcott’s poem, therefore, functions as an intervention by exposing how written, Christian-based historical frameworks directly displace Indigenous and African histories, and it offers a counter-history rooted in the physical realities of the Middle Passage and its aftermath.

Walcott begins with a direct challenge to Western conceptions of historical legitimacy. The opening question–“Where are your monuments, your battles, martyrs? / Where is your tribal memory?” (lines 1-2)–is phrased like an interrogation from a European authority. It represents the Western assumption that history must be preserved through monuments, documentation, and written evidence. This logic mirrors the structure of the Bible, which Western culture often treats as the ultimate historical archive because of it being a chronologically ordered, text-bound account that certifies a people’s origins. This implied standard resembles the injunction in Deuteronomy to “remember the days of old; consider the generations long past. Ask your father and he will tell you, your elders, and they will explain to you” (32:7), a command tied to written and genealogical record-keeping. The speaker’s answer, “The sea. The sea has locked them up. The sea is History” (lines 3-4), directly opposes this definition. Walcott establishes that the history of the Caribbean cannot be found in the forms that Western historians value. It exists in a different medium that isn’t writing, but the ocean, which holds the remains and experiences of enslaved Africans. This distinction sets up the poem’s argument. Walcott is not simply describing memory; he is identifying the limits of Western archival practices and showing that those limits contribute to the erasure of Caribbean history.

The poem’s movement into “Genesis” (line 9) marks the first of Walcott’s revisions of biblical narrative. Instead of the creation of the world, “Genesis” becomes “the lantern of a caravel” (line 8), referring to the arrival of European ships. By replacing the biblical origin story with the beginning of colonial intrusion, Walcott critiques how the West positions itself as the starting point of civilization. His revision exposes that what the Bible names as the beginning of life, Caribbean history names as the beginning of violence. This substitution is analytical, not metaphorical…Walcott demonstrates that colonial and Christian frameworks do not describe Caribbean reality accurately. Instead, they replace local histories with European interpretations of beginnings, origins, and meaning.

Walcott’s next biblical reference, “Exodus” (line 12), continues this critique. In the Bible, Exodus recounts the liberation of the Israelites from slavery. Walcott’s version is the opposite. He describes “the packed cries, / the shit, the moaning” (lines 10-11) in the holds of slave ships. Rather than liberation, this “Exodus” represents enslavement and forced displacement. This reversal directly critiques how Christian narratives were used historically to justify colonial domination. The enslaved were taught a biblical story about freedom while experiencing the complete denial of freedom.

The reference to “the Ark of the Covenant” (line 16) continues this rewriting. Traditionally, the Ark symbolizes divine authority and continuity. Walcott’s description–“Bone soldered by coral to bone” (line 13)–places the Ark underwater, made of the bodies of the enslaved. This is not a poetic flourish; it is a direct critique of how Christian symbols gained authority in the Caribbean at the expense of African and Indigenous cultural memory. The new “Ark” is not divine but historical because it records the violence that Christian frameworks either ignored or sanitized. Walcott uses the Christian symbol to show how Christian narratives displaced the cultural and spiritual structures of the enslaved. The biblical reference allows him to highlight a specific historical process: the substitution of African cosmologies with the Christian doctrine.

When the poem reaches “Lamentations” (line 49), Walcott emphasizes destruction and mourning. The biblical Book of Lamentations recounts the fall of Jerusalem, but Walcott’s version refers to the repeated devastation of Caribbean landscapes through both natural disaster and colonial exploitation. The line “that as just Lamentations, / it was not History” (lines 50-51) is so important. Walcott critiques the way Western narratives treat colonial suffering as incidental, marginal, or irrelveant ot “official” or “real” history. Lamentation, in his framing, is not part of recognized history because it does not appear in Western archives. The poem, therefore, distinguishes between written history, which reflects the perspective of colonizers. And lived history, which reflects the experiences of the colonized.

One of the poem’s clearest critiques of Western archival practices appears in the lines, “but the ocean kept turning blank pages / looking for History” (lines 24-25). The “blank pages” indicate the absence of written documentation of the experiences Walcott is recounting. The Atlantic slave trade produced no journals written by the enslaved, no monuments created by them, and no records preserved in their voices. Walcott uses the image of a blank page to explain how Western standards of documentation create historical gaps. If writing defines what counts as history, then the lives of those denied literacy, citizenship, or authorship become invisible. The poem argues that Western historical frameworks erase history not because the events did not happen, but because they were not recorded in the medium that the West values. The poem ends by asserting that history “really” begins not in Western writing, but in the ongoing struggle to recover suppressed voices. This is Walcott’s final critique…the biblical timeline he has revised shows that Western frameworks dictate beginnings, endings, and meaning in ways that erase non-Western histories. By rewriting scripture, he exposes this erasure and replaces it with a historically grounded alternative.

What Separate between Identity and Unity

Posted on November 16, 2025 by Miko Samiano

What does an identify have that unity doesn’t well there is more to that. In Roodan “The Ocean Reader: Theory,Culture,Politics” where both the ocean and humanities are two different entities that correlates with each other. Showing what is similar versus being completely different are two separate things that intertwines with each other. Roodan portrayal of human relationship with the ocean has a connection to how people in the modern era see things. The Ocean is a essential key part of world and is not really in our control in some way shape or form.

The central point of this piece that explains that the ideology is the Ocean is more than just something Humans are aware of and take advantage of and use for their personal gain like naming them, having it apart of certain terrestrial continents on earth. “there is one big Ocean, and while its regions have been conceptualized as separate bodies of water and named different Oceans, the fact is, they are all connected, and seawater travels widely and endlessly across these artificial geographic markers” (1,2). It has imply that their acknowledgement of what the ocean is and how they connect to the land they are closest to and maned after their land region. It is a concept that people have owned and signed an agreement to name ocean or land that they claim is a Nation as recognition of the people who live on it. The process of nationhood is a human way in the modern age to have two differ from each other by a particular characteristic. Having specific names have connections to humans as a geographic location.

The Ocean never really had capitalizes us humans in terms of our written language but it has with Mother Nature itself, It is seen as resource and not having much meaning to it because humans are dangerous creatures who just use it as something if needed in certain situations. The lack of the relationship between Humans and the Ocean itself. The ocean is just something to bypass by instead of thinking about how we need to respect it. The Ocean has carried knowledge that we know and It is one of the first things that developed majority of Earths current and extinct creatures that have lived as long the environment is livable and Us Humans don’t really acknowledged it in deep in thought. “Ocean is capitalized in this book”(3). As Roodan explains it has been going on for a claim for a formal name that we know it as. As much as it is a Ocean of nothingness in the surface level due to the lack of desire for exploration of the ocean and our relationship with it is mostly consists of just being used for human desires and never thought of much as a vital part of Earth to taken care of. The Ocean and many parts that make earth livable and responsible for influencing humans to think of borders of where they are in the world for some sort of a identity to have. Oceans often decides on weather conditions like storms, hurricanes and when the clouds will let water fall to ground and we see it as a rainy day outside.

In our Nations Politics have gotten involved in such as thing like having good knowledge, economics or even policies and someone is getting something and what the Ocean get Nothing. There is nothing to give the ocean from Humans and we should think more of why the Ocean has purpose instead of just seeing as a tool to get around by. The recognition of the Ocean is needed and what we choose to do as humans is nothing more than wanting more territory of who owns more and gets more. Most people recognize as a Domain and always have and still will and we have to take small steps to have better understanding of what the Ocean really is instead staying comfortable as we are. One example to have for the first step of recognizing it as a important part of our planet and knowing how to take care of it and too see how it affects the creatures who need the ocean to survive.

As Roodan puts it as he makes readers understand how to the oceans and how is our relationship with as a whole. To have some sort of meaning to the Ocean and how we treat it as it impacts our way of living and changing our ways would indeed help of healing our environment around us. The Ocean Identity is part of our world and no matter how we see it the Ocean is something to be acknowledged to all living creatures and it an environment worth protecting and is a Nation even without any named statehood boundaries made by Humans.

Reclaiming Mermaids

Posted on November 16, 2025 by Ashley Sims

Medieval Western depictions of mermaids have been used as a means to exert control over women. “Church leaders needed a feminine, dangerous, and lustful counterpart to their upstanding men. This is where mermaids came in.” (Scribner Ch.1) Christianity sculpted femininity as harmful to faith and devastator of mankind. “Their ultimate goal remained tethered to decentering the feminine.” (Scribner Ch.1) In contradiction to this tradition, Gabrielle Tesfaye’s short film “The Water Will Carry Us Home” illustrates mermaids as bearers of life. Employing an African perspective, Tesfaye challenges Western traditional operation of mermaids by using them to continue life rather than destroy it. By re-imagining the death of those killed at the hands of White Western oppressors, “The Water Will Carry Us Home” not only reclaims History, it reclaims mermaids.

A key component to presenting an African perspective is the framing of the animation with Yoruban and other African ritual. The film begins with clips of Tesfaye performing living ritual. Among the many images presented, Tesfaye is found mapping stars (0:53) and baring her stretched ears (0:55). These two images hold importance because they ground non-conformational history. African astrology dates back to ancient civilizations of Africa. Modern astrology gained its foundation from African astrology. By representing astrology in the form of star mapping, Tesfaye is recognizing contributions from early African civilizations. This confirms the fact that Africans were not lacking in educational cultivation. Contrary to what conquerors of African communities have attempted to illustrate, these cultures were not obtuse or primitive. Tesfaye’s stretched ears characterize a long-held African tradition that symbolizes wisdom and status. This tradition was not only practiced among Africans. It was a widespread custom, transcending cultures globally such as: Aztecs, Mayans, Ancient Greeks, Buddhists, among others. Westerns view stretched ears as a marker for savages. In baring her stretched ears, Tesfaye persuades her audience to recognize the cultural significance. A practice that transcends cultures globally and symbolizes knowledge and power. These first notable images not only begin to ground an African perspective, but they reinstate African history and culture as universally significant.

Furthering an African perspective, Tesfaye presents Yoruban Gods; or Orishas in her animation. The Orishas, Yemaya and Shango, a mother and son pair, are protecting the captured Africans. Yemaya is the Orisha of the sea, motherhood, and femininity. (4:20) She gives and protects life. Shango is the Orisha of thunder and lightning, he is a source of fertility and embodies masculinity. He uses his powers to hinder the progress of the ship. (2:48) Watching these two Gods, man and women, working together to hinder the slave ship, upends Christianity’s use for mermaids. The church’s mermaid depictions strove to reduce women in order to uplift men (as reiterated by Vaughn Scribner). Presenting the god of femininity and the god of masculinity in harmony, working together to protect their people, subverts the values of the Christian God. Unlike the reborn mermaids in the film, Yemaya is illustrated with a split tail. (4:50) The Christian church utilized a split tail to represent “feminine lust and danger” (Scribner). Illustrating the Orisha Yemaya, protector of women and renewer of life, with a split tail positively represents women’s sexuality as bearers of life. In explicitly giving a god a split tail, Tesfaye is reclaiming mermaids as a positive representation of women and their sexuality.

the intended end for pregnant women 4:06

“The Water Will Carry Us Home” re-imagines the brutal end that White western oppressors intended for pregnant women aboard their ship. (4:06) She re-gifts them life twice: by rendering them as mermaids (4:32) and by telling their stories. Reimagining their savage death with the formation of mermaids reclaims History by undermining their erasure. Closer examination of the mermaids after their rebirth shows that they all have a third eye. (4:40) In Yoruban culture, the third eye is the eye of the ancestors. Restoring these women as ancestors means they spawn descendants. Their genes and their stories are passed on. The dialogue of the atrocities of the Middle Passage is silenced because it is not something that society wants in conversation. It is common to cover up cruelty, especially in the case of mainstream society being the hand of that cruelty. Recreating these women as ancestors ceases the attempted erasure at the hands of the oppressor and reclaims History.

Throughout the film, real newspaper clippings are used to ground the animation in history. (3:05), (2:59) Tesfaye wants the audience to bear in mind that this is a historical narrative. In addition to the newspaper clippings, Tesfaye uses her ritual framings to ground the story in authenticity. At the end of the animation the Orisha Yemaya is clutching a white flower. (4:58) Then, cut to Tesfaye, throwing white flowers into the ocean. (5:20) Showing Yemaya interacting with one of the flowers that the living Tesfaye is throwing into the ocean further establishes the re-imagining into reality. Grounding the notion that this Orisha is out there as well as the emancipated mermaids. In addition, her ritual settles the account into reality when she is within the locked door. (5:45) In the beginning the live action is shown before the story is unlocked. Afterwards, Tesfaye is locked into the narrative, (5:57) suggesting the story’s reality, grounding the narrative, reclaiming history.

The doors locking her into the story 5:57

Telling the story of the Middle Passage in a digestible way operates to preserve the ancestry of people who were intended for an unrecoverable death. Lineage is continued when those thrown overboard are re-gifted with life during their mermaid transformation. Reclaiming life in turn reclaims History and narrative. Illustrating mermaids as bearers of life rather than destroyers of it upends the church’s aim to decenter the feminine. Tesfaye presents a positive representation of female sexuality with her mother mermaids. Reclamation of mermaids through an African perspective confutes the White western oppression of erasure.

Seeing Through the Mask

Posted on November 16, 2025 by Bomin Kim

In William Cronon’s ‘The Trouble with Wilderness’, the author explains that what people see as pure nature is actually shaped by human culture. He writes, “wilderness hides its unnaturalness behind a mask that is all the more beguiling because it seems so natural” (7). This image of the mask helps readers understand how humans cover up their own role in creating what they call nature. Cronon argues that seeing wilderness as pure is a dangerous illusion because it lets people ignore their own responsibility for environmental change. By showing how beauty and deception work together in this idea of wilderness, he suggests readers to look closely at their own beliefs and see how imagination shapes the world we think we are simply observing.

Cronon’s words make readers feel the difference between what is truly natural and what only seems natural. The word mask has two sides, it can hide something, but it can also make it look more appealing. When he describes the mask as beguiling, the word adds a feeling of temptation. This shows that humans are not just fooled by nature’s appearance, they want to believe in it. It reminds readers that what looks natural might actually be constructed. Even the structure of the sentence works like the mask itself, beautiful on the outside, but hiding something more complex beneath.

Cronon expands this idea when he writes that wilderness “seems to offer an escape from history and the self, when in fact it is the product of precisely that history” (8). This sentence shows that our idea of wilderness comes from culture and time, not from nature itself. Cronon suggests readers to notice how their sense of pure nature is built by human stories. Later, he writes, “the dream of an unworked natural landscape is very much the fantasy of people who have never themselves had to work the land” (11). The word fantasy connects back to the earlier image of the mask. It suggests that this illusion of untouched nature often comes from privilege and distance. People who do not depend on the land can afford to imagine it as pure and unworked. Cronon’ criticizes this way of thinking, showing how human fantasy turns nature into something unreal.

The mask also represents how modern society separates people from the natural world. Cronon points out that people idealize wilderness because they live apart from it. By calling it sacred or untouched, they make nature seem distant from everyday life. The mask, then, becomes a symbol of denial, a way to hide human influence on the environment. He suggests the idea of pure wilderness hides the fact that humans have already shaped it. I thought that Cronon uses this metaphor to show that the line between human and natural is not real, but imagined.

In conclusion, the mask is not only about wilderness but about how people see the world. Cronon reminds readers that language and culture shape what we call truth. Wilderness may look untouched, but that is because we have imagined it that way. By removing the mask, Cronon asks readers to see nature not as a fantasy or escape, but as part of the same world we live in, one that requires care, respect, and shared responsibility.

The Making of a Hero

Posted on November 16, 2025 by Kelly Cleary

In the chapter titled “The Great Old Hunter” from The Romance of the Faery Melusine, André Lebey creates a symbiotic relationship between humans and nature when describing nature as being “menacing and dangerous” because it is “full of the unknown” (Lebey 11). The dangerous quality of nature then formulates the need for heroes to protect the townsmen who are “huddled for comfort against their wives” as the dangerous creatures lurking in nature infiltrate the village (Lebey 11). By intertwining nature and humanity, the text critiques the idea that humans are separated from nature since the heroic persona and human virtue are built in the context of an environment that forces them to overcome threats and danger.

From the start of the chapter where the great hunter Count Aimery is introduced, Lebey positions the forest and all those who inhabit it as “[…] menacing and dangerous, full of the unknown, concealing the surprising and the supernatural” (11). Before he even truly begins the story of the hunter, the forest is specifically defined as a place where evil lurks. By using words such as “menacing” and “dangerous” to convey the characteristics of this environment, it becomes something for the townsmen to fear and creates a sense of tension within the village. Nature is not characterized as a passive being that simply exists, and instead is given a role as a perilous environment that is able to harbor these “unknown” and “supernatural” beings. The employment of the term “supernatural” also becomes vital since it creates the notion that not only is the village under threat, but it is under increased threat because the forest is essentially beyond the realm of this world. The reader then knows to be wary of this environment because it is being presented as an entity that can cause damage to the village and those who live there, since the actions of nature have an effect on those who live by its borders. Through the utilization of a hostile tone when describing the forest and the individuals that occupy it, the author leaves no doubt that nature is an evil force within the village because of the conflict it has created for them. In turn, when Lebey notes in the subsequent lines that “All along the bushes by the pathways the eyes of the lynxes burned, watching the old women, bowed under kindling” (11), he continues to reinforce this threat of unearthly creatures on the community. Rather than the lynxes watching the old women, Lebey explains that their eyes were “burning” to evoke a sense of mysticism since it feels as if they have a fire behind their eyes that is not normally present within these creatures. The reader is now able to recognize the danger the villagers are in, knowing that these may not be normal creatures since the “burning” eyes of the lynxes are a mark of their “supernatural” qualities. Nature then transforms into the villain in the narrative by being an ever-present danger and frightening those who are merely trying to live their lives in town. It looms over the town as the townspeople are being watched by the “burning” eyes of creatures who call the forest their home.

Further down in the passage, Lebey explains that because of the evil nature of the forest, it is a chance to showcase heroic virtues since “[…] evil reigned only if heroes failed to confront its dangers. It seemed that one existed to give rise to the other, for humans do not show their mettle if left to themselves” (Lebey 12). Through these lines, Lebey takes on a more optimistic view of the forest by claiming that it was created to “give rise” to heroes as a way to protect the community and dominate over evil. He is then cementing the intertwining relationship between humans and the natural world through the idea that they cannot exist on their own. This highlights the idea that human heroics depend on the presence of evil because it forces them to play the role of the hero in order to protect the town and the “townsmen huddled for comfort against their wives” (Lebey 11). The reader then understands that having nature as a threatening force is not an inherently bad thing because it is a critical force in building human character. Without the dangers that the forest presents, there might not be an opportunity for humans to display their superiority, since nature gives them something to fight against due to its evil characteristics. In turn, Lebey essentially points out that it is a good thing that the villagers live so close to danger because they are able to showcase their “mettle” that would otherwise be hidden away. Despite the turmoil and anxiety that the forest brings to the village, it is this exact evil that allows humans to embody the persona of a hero and showcase their excellence that would not present “if left to themselves.”

The interlacing of humans and nature throughout the narrative then serves as an important moment to move away from the idea that they can exist separately, since the heroic identity is founded within the connection between humans and the environment around them. As opposed to thinking that humans form their identities in isolation without any exterior forces, Lebey asks readers to rethink this notion by formulating the idea that it is through this “menacing” and “dangerous” environment that Count Aimery and others are able to reveal their greatness by hunting these dangerous creatures. The same forest that is home to all things “unknown” and “supernatural” can also be the place where virtue and nobility are born. Subsequently, humans may not know the extent of their superiority without the presence of danger threatening their livelihood. The forest becomes integral to humans because, through these experiences with evil and danger, it gives them the space to prove their worthiness.

What is History?

Posted on November 16, 2025 by Kaila Weigelt Rangel

In the poem “The Sea is History” by Derek Walcott, he transforms the sea into a living paradoxical archive, as a space that both conceals and preserves the suppressed histories outside of Western civilization. The Westernized idea of historical thinking of History needing to be physical or tangible is challenged when Walcott asks, “Where are your monuments, your battles, martyrs?” (line 1), and he answers that “in that gray vault, The sea” (line 3). Derek Walcott collapses the divide between natural landscape and historical record, redefining the sea as both a literal and symbolic archive that holds bodies, memories, and traumas erased by colonial violence. Walcott reimagines the sea, restoring silenced Caribbean histories, but also argues to consider what counts as historical evidence, insisting on recognizing how the landscape itself bears witness to the suppressed pasts Western narratives refuse to acknowledge.

The poem begins as an interrogation towards a Eurocentric audience, those who measure civilization by visible signs of achievement and memorialization, such as monuments, wars, and heroes. The first line “where are your monuments, your battles, martyrs?” creates both an ironic and defiant tone, as the speaker exposes the colonial logic that quotes “history” with documentation, or tangible symbols of empire. The question implies that the Caribbean-descended peoples’ historical legitimacy is denied because their past does not conform to those material standards. By asking and answering the question himself, he asserts his authority and establishes that he will define what and where “History” is.

The word “Sirs” contains Irony; it showcases formality, but its placement in the middle of the stanza sharpens the poem’s oppositional stance. The placement of the word implies that the speaker is responding to a condescending inquiry from people who believe in a one-sided, westernized “history,” those who demand evidence. Walcott capitalizing the ‘S’ in “Sirs” gives the word additional weight, standing for a collective historical gaze of authority and condescension. By addressing the “Sirs” directly, he positions himself and his culture as subjects who have been questioned, but now have the voice to answer back.

The image of the “grey vault. The sea” (line 3) is the first major image depicted within this poem. The “vault” can be both a burial chamber and a secure box, illustrating the sea as a tomb and an archive, a place that both conceals and preserves. The description of the color “grey” evokes neutrality and obscurity, being neither light nor dark, illustrating that what lies within the sea is unknown or unrecorded. Here within this line, the rhythm of the poem comes to a full stop after “vault” and then in short fragments declaring “The sea. The sea” (line 3), creating an echo with weight and finality. This repetition enacts the sea’s vastness and the inescapable truth of its claim over history.

The metaphor of “The sea is History” (line 4) collapses the distinction between history and nature, between written record and lived experience. The sea becomes both a lateral and symbolic archive, where the sea literally holds the bodies of the enslaved Africans during the Middle Passage, and symbolically represents memory, trauma, and the erasure of people’s past by colonial forces. Walcott, calling the sea “History,” overturns Western epistemology; history is no longer the narrative written by victors but the silent depths that remember what was suppressed.

At the end of the line “The sea. The sea. / has locked them up.” (line 3-4) the rhythm mimics waves, each phrase crashing, receding, and returning. The repetition of “sea” once again reinforces the vastness of the image. The sound of the ‘s’ gives the lines a hushed, whispering quality as though the sea itself is speaking. The rhythm mirrors the poem’s larger movement between silence and speech, between historical records and what it silences.

Ultimately, Walcott’s poem “The Sea is History” dismantles the dominance of Western historical frameworks by insisting that the most profound archives are not found in written records but in the natural world that has borne witness to colonial violence. Through the sea’s paradoxical role as both tomb and testament, Walcott reclaims history long denied, showing that absence is not emptiness, but evidence of lives drowned, submerged, and narratives deliberately erased. By transforming the sea into an alternative archive, Walcott not only restories the Caribbean’s silenced past but also exposes the narrowness of Western historiography itself. This poem demands that the audience expand their understanding of what constitutes history, urging them to listen to the landscapes that carry the weight of collective memory. Walcott ensures that the histories dismissed by empire are neither forgotten nor lost; they are simply waiting, held in the shifting, unending pulse of the sea.

Decolonizing History in “The Water Will Carry Us Home”

Posted on November 16, 2025 by Sierra Cruz-Phillips

In Gabrielle Tesfaye’s “The Water Will Carry Us Home” at timestamp 3:36, her imagery is fluid, featuring floating, womb-like forms with gentle water coloring, both of which create a space of rebirth, continuity, and liberation for a people considered lost to history. This imagery de-centers land as the main source of history on earth and instead portrays the ocean as an ancestral world of transformation (4:30), thus imploring her audience to perceive history from a decolonized point-of-view.

The setting in the given frame isn’t merely a backdrop but a fully lived in, active, and inhabited world. The use of water color dissolves borders and boundaries and creates something more fluid and alive, contrasting that of the static and grounded imagery associated with land. In Western civilization, history is written on and in monuments and borders; it is fixed and owned. Imagery in the short film rejects that, through the frame, ancestry (the figures) is something in motion and situated in memory rather than geography. By turning to water, Tesfaye implores her audience to see from a decolonized point of view. In resisting the idea that home, belonging, and history are anchored to land, one remembers the history of people thrown to the sea. There are people, such as the Igbo people, whose history—usually that of migration—is tied to the ocean. In this case, the ocean is a sort of archive without any edges where spirits go to live, transform, and remember.

What is most striking in the frame is the curled, womb-like figures. Though these women’s bodies were tossed in the sea with intentions of death, the imagery of the figures suggests a sense of rebirth despite not being on solid ground of earth. These forms are untethered; they float in suspension, emphasizing a weightlessness to a rootedness. Furthermore, many of the figures cradle their wombs; their nurture is literally happening in water, much like how we are born from the water in the womb. The ocean itself becomes a symbol of the womb, a sight of gestation instead of intended destruction from Western colonizers. Western ideology often imagines birth and creation coming from solid ground—Adam from Earth and civilization from soil, for example. Tesfaye shifts this land-centric point of view to that of creation from the sea. This aligns more closely with African mythologies, where water spirits (such as Omambala mentioned in the film) embody life and power. The given frame, specifically, reframes the Ocean as a source giving life rather than devouring it, offering a counter narrative to that of a Westernized history. The Igbo people are depicted as a part of history that lives on instead of lost souls in the sea.

A few frames later, at timestamp 4:30, we see the floating figures transform into merpeople with a third eye in between their brows. Given research, the Third Eye is significant in Indian cultures to someone’s intuition and trust in a higher power that cannot be seen. Tesfaye uses the Third Eye as a visual assertion that spiritual intuition is as much of a legitimate form of history as written history, especially in a world where African culture and history was neglected and was never documented in the first place. Furthermore, each of the transformed merpeople have a Third Eye depicting this intuitive truth, or knowledge, as being carried in one’s body, community, and spirit. This depiction of these newly transformed beings carrying their knowledge challenges Eurocentric histories where “true” knowledge is found solely in written archives and documentation. Tesfaye’s recentering of African systems that honor spiritual sight as a form of culture and history sequentially restores knowledge erased or suppressed by means of colonization. By reclaiming history from a colonial subjective version, the floating figures/merpeople are not mere objects of violence but are subjects of spiritual and knowledgeable authority.

The inclusion of mermaids and collage artwork, both in frame 3:36 and 4:30, depicts African diaspora “hybrid” experiences. Tesfaye’s artwork itself is a collage, including the merpeople depicted; the art is assembled piece by piece, containing memories, oral stories, and traditions of African cultures, building and completing a history untold by colonizers. As seen from her official website, Tesfaye herself comes from a multicultural background, descending from a Jamaican and Ethiopian background, and has lived in places such as Thailand and India. Her experience as a Black woman oriented around many cultures, genres, and narratives bleeds into her short film. In turn, her film analyzes eco-critical frameworks from and in relation to African experiences that are “hybrid,” much like herself. By emphasizing merpeople as symbols of hybrid narratives, Tesfaye rejects colonial ideologies that view mixed or hybrid diasporic cultures as being less legitimate to history.

Tesfaye’s short film invites the audience to rethink how history is written. Reworking history by crossing merfolk narratives with African cultures reclaims history by depicting a different narrative than those, namely from colonial points of view, previously told in Western history. That a terra-centric history is not the only history, just because it is what is commonly taught. The enslaved people who were thrown out to sea have a history, and though it may not be on land, it lives on. “The Water Will Carry Us Home” creates a more rounded and whole version of the past, and asks those watching to recognize the importance of understanding a history beyond Western archives.

The Allure of Power

Posted on November 16, 2025 by Melissa Vincent

In Agnieska Smoczynska’s The Lure, the mermaid Silver’s human male love interest Mietek’s refusal to touch her mermaid tail depicts a theme in mermaid lore of men’s desire for women being dependent on the control patriarchy exerts over women, rejecting power and strength in feminine bodies. His sexual rejection forces Silver to choose between keeping her power or his love, making her conform to a human dynamic of patriarchy where he will have power over her, leaving her to be entirely dependent on his affection for survival.

The Lure is a modern mermaid story, taking place in 1980s Poland but filmed in the mid 2010s. It operates in a similar vison of the myths and rules of Hans Christian Anderson’s The Little Mermaid. One exception being that mermaids can change back and forth between their mermaid form into a terrestrial form, which includes legs but not genitalia. This changes the position of the mermaids in The Lure as mermaids have more freedom and strength on land. Elements of Anderson’s tale that remain are gaining human legs and genitalia makes a mermaid lose their voice. Additionally, if the human they love falls in love with someone else the mermaid will turn to sea foam. While some of these elements are considered a superstition by some characters, it does demonstrate that on land there are threats to mermaids’ power.

The scene of Mietek’s rejection begins with Silver transforming from her sexually restricted terrestrial form to her mermaid form in the bathtub while Mietek watches. Silver makes her sexual desires for him known with a direct statement. As he observes her, his expression changes from tantalization to uneasiness. While she does this in preparation for a sexual encounter, Mietek is confronted with truth of her form that reveals her strength and power, which makes him scared and sexually uninterested.

This is stated in his response to Silver’s sexual advances as he says to her “don’t to be angry, but to me you’ll always be a fish, an animal. I can’t do this, as much as I’d like to,” (33:59). While his declaration of her inadequacy for him is the devastating emotional statement, he begins his rejection with admitting to his fear of her physical power. He tells her to not be angry because he understands her anger could be an actual physical threat to him. Her mermaid otherness is a threat to the terrestrial experience he has been part of where human women are smaller and typically are not as physically strong as Silver.

It is important to note that this includes Silver in her terrestrial form, she is shorter and more petite than Mietek. It contradicts the experiences he has had with her on land to see her in her mermaid form, revealing how powerful she always is but conceals to participate in terrestrial activities.

Silver understands their contrasting power dynamic bothers him, that his sexual desire is dependent on him not feeling weaker. To soothe his mindset, she offers him a piece of her power in the form of one of her scales. It is a painful action even for her strong body, she shows the pain in her expression and in the blood that is left behind. She promises him power and talent in his music playing with this scale, which he is eager to accept but before he takes it she asks from him a kiss in trade. With the scale almost in his grasp he carefully maneuvers around touching her tail to give her a chaste kiss on the cheek, before accepting this gift. Like the pain she showed in removing the scale, her disappointment in this offer of power to him is expressed.

He avoids her tail in this scene, not out of physical respect but in an act of supporting his comment that she is not human enough for sexual interest to him. In Silver’s terrestrial form he also avoids any touching below the waist before her surgery, even in physically intimate moments. This causes sexual and emotional frustration for Silver because he participates in a physical relationship with her but reminds her of the inadequacies he sees in her.

In contrast to this relationship’s dynamic there is an additional sexual scene between Silver’s sister Golden with a woman. Unlike Mietek’s avoidance of Silver’s tail, Golden and her female lover invite the presence of Golden’s tail in their sexual experience with each other. With the sexual anatomy of mermaids only being accessible when they are in their mermaid form, Golden does not have the same frustrations as Silver and is not motivated to cobble her power or identity.

The behavior from Mietek of keeping Silver at a distance and lacking in value to him, he resets the power dynamic between them. She is now in the weaker position within their relationship because he does not consider her to be an equal to him. This mirrors the relationship of the Little Mermaid and the prince in The Little Mermaid. The Little Mermaid was a semi-immortal member of royalty, and the prince made her sleep on a pillow outside his door (Penguin, 124). In the situation Mietek frames for her, in ordered to be loved by this human, she must be a human which means up giving not only her power but her identity.

Silver begins planning to have her fin replaced with a lower half of a human, which she is warned will make her lose her voice and make the terrestrial world her permanent home. The influence of the terrestrial patriarchal system inclines her to be compliant to the will of her love interest. Her experience on land has made her doubt her own power as she has been met with exploitation and violence, but not directly from Mietek. He has been supportive and has enjoyed the profits of her power in song and in his music. Even so, he only appreciates her power when it benefits him. After her surgery with her voice and powers muted, he loses interest in her when she cannot provide these benefits for him and is now repulsed by her in this powerless form.

With his rejection Silver’s life is now entirely in the power of Mietek. She relinquished her power, voice, and strength to contort and conform to his desires. But his desire was never for her, it was always for the power she had that he did not which he pursued. Now he can dispose of her in a way that he never could when she was a mermaid. He has truly achieved the power he always wanted, to not be scared of a feminine body that wanted and loved him.

Works Cited

Anderson, Hans Christian. “The Little Mermaid”. The Penguin Book of Mermaids, Bacchilega, Cristina, and Marie Alohalani Brown. The Penguin Book of Mermaids. Penguin Books, 2019.

The Lure. Directed by Agnieska Smoczynska, Janus Films, 2015.

Managing Behavior, Not Nature

Posted on November 16, 2025 by Morgan Feltus

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.

Mermaids: Literature & the Environment

ECL 305. Fall 2025. Professor Pressman

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