Required Reading (available at SDSU bookstore)
-Cristina Bacchilega and Marie Alohalani Brown, eds. The Penguin Book of Mermaids (Penguin, 2019)
-Rivers Solomon, The Deep (Saga, Gallery Press, 2019)
Optional/Recommended: Vaughn Scribner, Merpeople: A Humhttps://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/M/bo70562484.htmlan History (University of Chicago Press, 2020) (also available online through SDSU library)

NOTE: ** I prefer students to have a physical copy of the book or the PDF in class, rather than a cell phone or computer.**

Week 1: Introductions

August 26: Introduction to the class

August 28: Introduction to the class & each other

Week 2:  History via Mermaids

September 2: Vaughn Scribner, excerpts from Merpeople: A Human History (University of Chicago Press, 2020):  “Introduction” to Merpeople: A Human History (pgs. 7-27)
–-SLIDES from class

September 4: Vaughn Scribner, excerpts from Merpeople: A Human History  Chapter 1, “Medieval Monsters” (pgs. 29-57)  
–SLIDES from class

Week 3: Ancient Origin Myths

September 9: Cristina Bacchilega and Marie Alohalani Brown, “Introduction: The Stories We Tell about Mermaids and Other Water Spirits” (Penguin, ix-xxii),
-SLIDES from class

September 11: “Oannes” (Babylonian) (Penguin, pgs. 3-4),
“Kaliya, the Snake” (India) (Penguin, pgs. 5-8)
“The Tuna (Eel) of Lake Vaihiria” (Pacific Islands) (Penguin, pgs. 13-18)
“Sedna” (Inuit): https://www.polarlife.ca/traditional/myth/sedna.htm
Cristina Bacchilega and Marie Alohalani Brown, “Water Beings of Indigenous North America” (Penguin, pgs. 281)
–SLIDES from class

Week 4: Ancient Origin Myths

September 16: Steve Mentz, “An introduction to Blue Humanities”: “A Poetics of Planetary Water: The Blue Humanities after John Gillis” (2023).
Steve Mentz, Ocean (Bloomsbury, 2020): “Deterritorializing Preface” (pgs. xv-xviii)
**CLASS MEETS IN THE DIGITAL HUMANITIES CENTER, LOVE LIBRARY BASEMENT
–extra credit: 5 questions for Mentz based upon our reading and learning.

September 18: “Odysseus and the Sirens” (ancient Greece) (Penguin, pgs. 9-12)
SLIDES from class

Additional: Vaughn Scribner, excerpts from Merpeople: A Human History (University of Chicago Press, 2020): Chapter 2, “New Worlds, New Wonders” (pgs. 59-93)

Week 5: Medieval Melusine (14^th Century, France)

September 23: No class meeting—Rosh Hashanah

September 25: The Legend of Melusina” (Penguin, pgs. 85-88)
and, from The Romance of the Faery Melusine (Gareth Knight, translated by Andre Lebey, 19^th C).
Ch. 1: “The Great Old Hunter” (PDF, pgs.11-15)
Ch. 3: “The Faery at the Fountain” (PDF, pgs. 23-29)
SLIDES from class

Week 6: Medieval Melusine (14^th Century, France)

September 30:  from The Romance of the Faery Melusine (Gareth Knight, translated by Andre Lebey, 19^th C)
Ch.14: “Betrayal” (PDF, pgs. 119-125)
Ch. 22: “Departure” (PDF, pgs. 138-144)
SLIDES from class

October 2: No class meeting—Yom Kippur

Week 7: The Origins of the Modern Era: 19^th C Industrialism & Capitalism

October 7: from Undine (1811) (Penguin, pgs. 101-106)
SLIDES from class

October 9: “The Feejee Mermaid Hoax” (Penguin, pgs. 239-244) and
-excerpt from Vaughn Scribner’s Merpeople: A Human History: from Chapter 4, “Freakshows and Fantasies” (125-129)
Peer review of thesis statement for Essay 1- bring print out of thesis to class
SLIDES from class

Week 8: The Victorian Standard

October 14: Hans Christian Andersen, The Little Mermaid (1837) (Penguin, p. 107-130)
Peer review of thesis statement for Essay 1- bring print out of thesis to class
SLIDES from class

October 16: Hans Christian Andersen, The Little Mermaid (1837) (Penguin, p. 107-130)
SLIDES from class

**Discovery #1 Due Sunday 10/19  at midnight, posted to the blog**

Week 9: Defining  “The Wilderness” and “The Environment”

October 21: William Cronon, “The Trouble with Wilderness” (1996)
SLIDES from class

October 23: The Emergence of Environmental Humanities” in The Environmental Humanities: A Critical Introduction, eds. Robert S. Emmett and David E. Nye (MIT Press, 2017) (pgs. 1-21)
SLIDES from class

Week 10: The Blue Humanities: Oceanic Thinking  & History

October 28: Eric Paul Roorda, The Ocean Reader: Theory, Culture, Politics (Duke UP, 2020). ‘Introduction” (pgs. 1-4)
-John Gillis, “The Blue Humanities” (Humanities: The Journal of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Web. 2013)
SLIDES from class

October 30: Helen M. Rodzadowski, Vast Expanses: A History of the Oceans (Reaktion Books, 2018), “Introduction: People and Oceans” (pgs. 7-12) PDF
SLIDES from class

Week 11: The Blue Humanities: Oceanic Thinking, History, & Art Activism

November 4: Emilija Skarnulyte’s short film, Sironemelia (2017)
SLIDES from class

November 6: Gabrielle Tesfaye, The Water will carry us home (stop motion animation, 2018) 
**Peer review of thesis statements for Essay 2; bring to class**
SLIDES from class

**Revisions to Discovery #1 Due Sunday 11/9 at midnight, email the professor **

Week 12: The Ocean as Archive

November 11: Veteran’s Day, no class

November 13: Gabrielle Tesfaye, The Water will carry us home (stop motion animation, 2018) 
-Derek Walcott, “The Sea is History” (1978), poem
SLIDES from class

*NEW DEADLINE: Short Essay: Discovery/Close Reading 2—Due Sunday 11/16 at midnight, posted to the blog**

Week 13: Mami Wati and African Mermaids

November 20: Rivers Solomon, The Deep (2019): Chapters 1-4
SLIDES from class

Week 14: Thanksgiving Week—No class meetings—Thesis Review
(BLOG prompt: What you need to learn/do for your final project)

November 25: No class meeting. Asynchronous peer review in Google docs
Instructions:

1. Post a draft of your thesis and plan for the final essay; thesis statement (2-3 sentences) at the beginning or  before our class time (before 3:30 pm). You can add more content about your planned media format, if you want feedback on that too!

2. During class time, add comments on at least one peer’s abstract– but hopefully every one– by Tuesday, November 25 at midnight.

November 27: No class meeting. Thanksgiving

**Revisions to Discovery #2 Due Sunday 11/30 at midnight, email the professor**
**Final project proposals due Sunday 11/30 at midnight, posted to the blog**

Week 15: The Deep

December 2: Rivers Solomon, The Deep (2019): Chapters 5-7
SLIDES from class

December 4:  Rivers Solomon, The Deep (2019): Chapters 8-9, all of the book
SLIDES from class

Week 16: Conclusions
(BLOG prompt: What you learned in this class– final take-away/So What!)

December 9: Stephanie Burt, “We are Mermaids” (2022) [PDF], poem

December 11: Concluding Conversation
*extra credit blogs due by end of last class period**

*Final Essay due, Sunday, December 14, at midnight, posted to the blog**