Last week, I had to chance to brighten those dreary nights in November with a visit to Edinburgh and the lively “Fates of Frankenstein”, a two-day conference about Frankenstein’s legacies in popular culture. My presentation was about “Frankenstein Mermaids” and if you are interested, you can read read more about that in this article that was published in Foundation.
Carol S. Pearson’s bestselling book “The Hero Within” combines insights from literature, anthropology and psychology to distinguish six heroic archetypes. Taking both Hans Christian Andersen’s and Disney’s versions ‘The Little Mermaid’ as case studies, this blogpost shall identify archetypes from Pearson’s Heroic Myth Index that can be traced in the main character.
The first track of my solo album is about the story of Achtamar, which I learned in Armenia. Using the familiar trope of of star-cross’d lovers, the story of Achtamar is about a young woman named Tamar and the young man who loves her. They meet in secret on an island, until Tamar’s father discovers their trysts and sets a trap for the youth. He manages to escape, but he is mortally wounded and cannot swim across the lake. As he dies, his last action is to whisper her name across the water: ‘Ach, Tamar!’. With the help of my friend Ofelia Melikyan, I translated the famous poem by Hovhannes Tumanyan about this story. And with the help of John Vandenberg, I rewrote it into a poem of …
In Oceanopolis, I encountered a beautiful and intriguing mermaid. It was an artefact of Inuit art – goddess Sedna. Touched by the small statue and the fascinating myth behind it, I would like to share the story of Sedna with you, by means of some creative writing on my blog.
Another original piece of fan fiction on this blog. 🙂 Clonroise from Tumblr account @underneathoursouls wrote a Chobits fan fiction about the cyborg mermaid, with many Irish influences. The use of different fonts refers to inner monologue in this piece and the use of Irish will be translated at the end of the work and is written in italics.
At this moment, I am working on a chapter for an edited volume called “Deconstructing the Zombie: Cultural and Ideological Approaches”. It can hardly be a surprise that I am working on the composite character of the Zombie Mermaid. 😉 As I am very keen on your feedback and suggestions (some more case studies, anyone?), I thought it would be nice to share some of my work-in-progress with you.