Keynote Presentation: A Reading from Ring of Salt

This conference engages with cultural representations of mermaids, selkies and kindred beings; fabulous, enchanted creatures who inhabit the expanses of water of myth and folklore, whether oceans, rivers, or lakes. Such locations swarm with merfolk, nereids and other water nymphs, nixies, merrows, selkies, finfolk, kelpies, rusalkas. The conference brings an interdisciplinary approach to the narration of these figures through history, particularly from the nineteenth century to the present day. We also give attention to and arouse discussion around their non-European counterparts such as Mami Wata from West Africa.

These creatures facilitate the interaction between humanity and nature (both inner and outer). In their Gothic aspect and engagement with darkness, they may adumbrate a re-enchantment of the disenchanted world (following Weber and Adorno); reconciliation with Otherness; and new relationships with the natural world. The conference looks at narratives of merfolk and their kin in the light of their Gothic aspects and that highlight their connection with folklore, dwelling on the enchantment of their strange fluidity.