Search results for: mermaid

The Cyborg Mermaid – or: how technè can help the misfits fit in and stand out! In feminist studies, the figure of the mermaid has long been regarded as flawed, disabled and less-than-human. Her theoretical counterpart in that respect would be the cyborg, an image used to show that with the help of robotics, humankind could be larger than life. So, what would happen if we could combine those two images and apply them to create “super love” more-than-human relationships? In my PhD, I am exploring the possibilities of technology for “mermaids”, people who normally fall outside the norm, to satisfy human desires in a new way. Publications in English (selection): Mussies, Martine, and Emiel Maliepaard. “The Cyborg Mermaid (or: How Technè Can Help the Misfits Fit …

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Together with various (other) artists, such as Sylé, I designed a video game with a gang of queer mermaids as its main characters. At EuroBiReCon 2016 I presented a paper with the theoretical framework behind this game design. The design itself in a playable version was presented at Open Huis in Overvecht, end 2016. Article (still…) forthcoming in the Journal of Applied Sciences. The video above shows some bits & pieces of my Game Design Document for an RPG called “The Queer Mermaid”. The story evolves around three non-traditional mermaids: Amar, Rosa, Seren. My friend Sylé imagined Amar – the one with the camera and the bag – as an intersex / gender neutral person with a talent for finding practical solutions and capturing important moments. Rosa …

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The Bisexual Mermaid: Andersen’s fairy tale as an allegory of the bi-romantic sexual outsider. For the EuroBiCon 2016, I have given a workshop about hidden LGBT+ traces in mainstream literature. My case study was “The Little Mermaid”, a multi-layered fairy tale by the Danish author Hans Christian Andersen. After some background information about the fairy tale and the Disney film, I explained various theoretical frameworks. We used different techniques and perspectives to interpret the tale and concluded with a writing exercise. Forthcoming articles in the Journal of Bisexuality and Raffia (journal of gender studies).

After obtaining my MA in musicology, Russian literature and cultural analysis, I started researching mermaids in music. Now, I am working on a PhD on the topic of how modern media invite people to create new mermaid stories. Ongoing projects: ♫ – The Queer Mermaid. Together with various (other) artists, such as Sylé, I am designing an RPG with a gang of queer mermaids as its main characters. ♫ – Jazz Jennings’s transmedial transformation of transition. ♫ – “Meerminnen”. An article about this song by Maria Zwollo-v.d. Maas and Louis Couperus. ♫ – A Mermaid’s Soul Beliefs. The concept of the soul in 20th century storytelling. Soulless creatures? Recent work: ♫ – The Bubbling Mermaid – or: how Internet invites the personal to become public. ♫ – …

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Pakistani author Tooba wrote this chilling story with zombie mermaid vibes. Republished with the author’s permission.

For Lembas, I wrote a short article about the mythical and folkloric backgrounds of J.R.R. Tolkien’s water nymph Goldberry. This weblog contains an English translation.