Mermaids and Water Spirits
Special WIP-WAC Event
Thursday, November 13, 5pm to 7pm
Olson 18A
Refreshments served!
Palimpsests of the Jiaoren Folktale: Performing Mermaid Memory in Contemporary Chinese Aquariums
Wendy Feng, Graduate Student in Comparative Literature
This project explores contemporary mermaid performances in Chinese aquariums, where young performers in shimmering fishtails reenact ancient Jiaoren folklore. Drawing on six field visits to major aquariums in China, I examine the modern mermaid’s body through the lenses of folklore commodification and blue humanities, exploring how such shows may carry an emancipatory ecological potential that moves beyond the long-critiqued framework of animal shows.
Thinking with Water: Notes on Ingeborg Bachmann’s Undine gehtand Barbara Köhler’s Niemands Frau
Aaron Saint John, Graduate Student in German
This talk charts the very beginnings of a critical foray into the figure of the Wasserfrau in modern German literature, focusing on Ingeborg Bachmann’s Undine geht (1961) and Barbara Köhler’s Niemands Frau (2007). Drawing on feminist, posthuman, and ecocritical theories, this project hopes to trace how radical reimaginings of canonical Wasserfrauen might disrupt andro- and anthropocentric master narratives and help us envision a more fluid philosophy of being. Expect more questions than answers at this early stage, and feel free to bring a few of your own.
WIP-WAC is an informal series for faculty and graduate students to share Work In Progress or Work Already Completed in a productive but informal atmosphere.
Interested in sharing your work? Please contact Michael Dylan Foster (mdfoster@ucdavis.edu).
