For the designer Sea Changes booklet that was given to in-person attendees, click here.
Note: all times are in BST (GMT + 1). We are sorry for the inconvenience that this may cause to some people on Saturday–one of the disadvantages of an online event!
There is also a printable PDF version of this programme available for download:
* Click on the arrows to expand the panels and see which papers they feature
Saturday, 6 September 2025: On line
1 9:15 – 9:30 Welcome Teams Conference Room 1
Assoc. Prof. Sam George (OGOM Project; University of Hertfordshire)
2 9:30 – 10:30 Parallel Session: Panels 1 and 2
1 Hybridity, monstrosity and taxonomy Chair: Dr Ivan Phillips
Teams Conference Room 1
8 Fredrik Blanc (Manchester Metropolitan Univeristy) The mercreature as metonym – Suspension and onto-epistemological resistance in the Blue Weird
17 Dr Ryan Denson (University of Silesia in Katowice)
Wittgenstein’s family resemblances and the hybridity of ancient sea monsters
63 Dr Kwasu Tembo (Lancaster University) The machine in the monster and the monster in the machine: Towards ateratology of technology through the techno-monstrosity of Nemo’s Nautilus
2 Aquatic romance 1 Chair: Andrin Albrecht
Teams Conference Room 2
54 Raymond Rugg (Bridgewater State University)
Love, Atlantean style: Portrayals of merfolk sex, love and marriage in adult cartoon series
55 Madelaine Sacco (University of Newcastle, NSW)
Making Waves: The Fluidity of Gender in Merfolk Mythology
75 Dr Jie Zhuang (University of California, Irvine)
Forging the Literati Self: The Merbeing in ‘Bai Qiulian’
4 11:30 – 11:45 Break
3 10:30 – 11:30 Plenary 1: ‘Forging the mermaid in Romantic Scotland’ Teams Conference Room 1
Dr Katie Garner (University of St Andrews)
Introduced by Bill Hughes
5 11:45 – 12:45 Session: Panel 4 (no panel 3)
4 Romanticism and sirens Chair: Antonio Alcalá González
Teams Conference Room 1
65 Prof. Judith Thompson (Dalhousie University) Let ‘brooks and echoing falls repeat’: John Thelwall’s Fairy of the Lake
69 Amanda Trainham (SUNY) Farewel, ye Fair Illusions’: The Distorted siren’s song in Dryden’s King Arthur and Shadwell’s Psyche
6 12:45 – 13:45 Lunch
7 13:45 – 14:45 Parallel Session: Panels 5 and 6
5 Myth and storytelling Chair: Dr Ryan Denson
Teams Conference Room 1
4 Dr Antonio Alcalá González (Tecnológico de Monterrey, Santa Fe Mexico City) Tlaloc and Chac Mool over Mexico City: The haunting of Aztec water deities on Mexico City
71 Agelika Velissariou (AUTh, School of Primary Education, Thessaloniki) The tale of the Mermaid of Thermaikos
6 Traumas, threats, and transformations: Traditional and contemporary selkie stories from Scotland to the Arctic Chair: Dr Silvia Storti
Teams Conference Room 2
1 Dr Ingibjörg Ágústsdóttir (Universtiy of Iceland) Selkie transformations: Trauma, memory, and environmental exploitation in C. J. Cooke’s A Haunting in the Arctic
61 Colleen Taylor (Boston College) Mermaid love and seal hunting: The complexities of the Irish seal skin
28 Dr Lizanne Henderson (University of Glasgow) Preternatural phocids: Seals, selkies and the imagined sea
8 14:45 – 15:30 Mermaid Flash Fiction Teams Conference Room 1
Dr Daisy Butcher (OGOM Project)
9 15:30 – 16:30 Parallel Session: Panels 7 and 8 (3 and 2 papers)
7 Light and shade in ‘The Little Mermaid’ and selkie fiction Chair: Rebecca Greef
Teams Conference Room 2
36 Alexa Keough (University of Hampshire.) Slipping off the sealskin: Examining the nuances of intimate partner violence in selkie mythology
38 Jubby Kumar (Guru Ghasidas Vishwavidyalaya) Breaking the shell: How modern mermaid fiction rewrites the Disney Princess
43 Protyasha Mazumdar (University of Hertfordshire) Part of your world- The reinterpretations and retellings of ‘The Little Mermaid’ (1837) based on the history and society of the human world
8 Mermaids, hybridity and the aquatic environment Chair: Dr Daisy Butcher
Teams Conference Room 1
80 Dr Francesca Arnavas (University of Tartu) Hybridity and eco-criticism in Laura Pugno’s Sirene
6 Dr Barbara Barrow (Lund University) Water, desire, and crisis in the Southern Bayou: Alice Dunbar-Nelson’s Natalie as a modern mermaid tale
45 Shareed Mohammed (University of the West Indies) The Haitian Voodoo river gods: The shamanic call in Wilson Harris’s The Secret Ladder
10 16:30 – 16:45 Break
11 16:45 – 17:45 Plenary 2: A reading from the memoir Ring of Salt, drawing on the Selkie myth Teams Conference Room 1
Betsy Cornwell (Author)
Introduced by Sam George
12 17:45 – 18:00 Closing remarks and instructions for days 2 – 3 at the British Library Teams Conference Room 1
Assoc. Prof. Sam George (OGOM Project; University of Hertfordshire)
Sunday, 7 September 2025: British Library
13 11:00 – 11:15 Registration – tea and coffee
14 11:15 – 12:15 Introduction and Plenary 3: The luck of the Ningyō: Hybridity and the rise of the fake museum mermaid Eliot Room
Assoc. Prof. Sam George (OGOM Project; University of Hertfordshire)
Introduced by Bill Hughes
15 12:15 – 13:15 Parallel Session: Panels 9 and 10
9 Aqueous creatures and gender identity Chair: Marion Troxler
Eliot Room
12 Dr Monika Class (Lund University) From sea horror to queer grief: Representations of the sperm whale and the colossal squid, 1851–2021
53 Cecilia Rose (University of Exeter) Feminism and spiritualism in Evelyn De Morgan’s Little Mermaid triptych (1886–1914)
59 Dr Per Elben Svelstad (NTNU in Trondheim) The maiden in the mountain lake: Becoming-woman in Sigrid Undset’s Kristin Lavransdatter
10 Hybridity and metamorphosis Chair: Dr Maria Szafrańska-Chmielarz Dickens Room
3 Andrin Albrecht (Friedrich Schiller University Jena,) Sirens in the city: On river spirits, politics, and the collapse of spatial limitations in Ben Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London series
11 Dr Anna Casablancas-Cervantes (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona) Habitat-fluid and water-bound : metamorphic characters in Mercè Rodoreda’s ‘The Salamander’ and ‘The River and the Boat’ (1967)
16 13:15 – 14:00 Lunch and Exhibition
17 14:00 – 14:45 Session: Panels 11 and 12 (2 papers each)
11 Re-enchanting nature Chair: Dr Bill Hughes
Eliot Room
40 Beth Lettington (University of Hull) ‘Touch with chaste palms moist and cold, / Now the spell hath lost his hold’: Sabrina, Nymph of the River Severn in Milton’s A Maske Presented at Ludlow Castle (1634)
73 Dr Amy Waterson (Royal Holloway, University of London)‘This modern world is a world where the wonderful is utterly commonplace’: Dangerous disenchantment in H. G. Wells’s The Sea Lady (1902)
12 Reimagining the merfolk of fairy tale Chair: Shabnam Ahsan
Dickens Room
79 Dr Elena Emma Sottilotta (University of Cambridge) Cola Pesce and the Gothic Mediterranean: Hybrid bodies and haunting waters in contemporary reimaginings
57 Dr Silvia Storti (Early Career Researcher) Venture where you will: the aquatic Other in fairy-tale retellings
18 14:45 – 14:55 Tea/Coffee Break
19 14:55 – 15:55 Parallel Session: Panels 13 and 14
13 The Gothic Little Mermaid Chair: Assoc. Prof. Sam George
Elliot Room
10 Dr Daisy Butcher (University of Hertfordshire) Tentacular Defiance: An exploration of Hans Christian Andersen’s Sea Witch and female sexuality in ‘The Little Mermaid’ (1837)
25 Rebecca Greef (University of Hertfordshire) Poor unfortunate Souls: The Faustian bargain of ‘The Little Mermaid’
67 Sinead Tobin (Lancaster University ) Mysterious fathoms below: Exploring the depths of Disney’s Gothic mermaids
14 Sirens. selkies and the feminine Chair: Dr Maria-Silvia Cohut
Dickens Room
78 Ann Conmy (Technological University of the Shannon) A littoral rubicon betwixt and between
27 Marci Heatherly (Pittsburg State University, KA) Femme fatale, occult waters, and siren silencing in Louise Erdrich’s ‘Fleur’
20 15:55 – 16:55 Parallel Session: Panels 15 and 16
15 Mariners and merfolk Chair: Dr Francesca Sawaya
Eliot Room
7 Dr Karl Bell (University of Portsmouth) Remaking the mermaid: Comparing nineteenth-century depictions at sea and ashore
16 Dr Emma Dee (Early Career Researcher) Mignonette: The last voyage of The Mermaid and the cannibal erotic
29 Dr Charles Hoge (Metropolitan State University of Denver) When enchantment is made flesh: An exploration of the Steller’s Sea-ape
16 Folklore, fairies, and fish-people Chair: Maria Beville
Dickens Room
35 Alex Judkins (University of Sheffield) Dis/enchantment and Enlightenment: Fish-men, folklore and fact in eighteenth-century Spain
39 Scarlette-Electra LeBlanc (University of Hull) Changelings in the water: Folktales, folk beliefs and a literary afterlife
42 Rachel Martin (Harvard University) Into the depths: Reading queerness in the water-horse tradition
21 19:00 – late Conference Dinner
At Nonna Selena, 18 Woburn Pl, London WC1H 0LN
Monday, 8 September 2025: British Library
22 8:30 – 8:50 Registration – tea and coffee
23 8:50 – 9:50 Parallel Session: Panels 17 and 18
17 Nation and nature Chair: Dr Karl Bell
Eliot Room
20 Mariateresa Esposito (University of Iceland) The Nykur: An Icelandic water spirit in folklore and cultural memory
21 Dr Kathryn Franklin (University of Toronto) A Mari Usque Ad Mare: Phyllis Brett Young’s Undine and the female grotesque in the popular Canadian imaginary
76 Valentýna Žišková (Charles University/Sapienza Università di Roma) The transgression of boundaries: Urban’s Hastrman between folklore and eco-Gothic
18 Aquatic romance 2 Chair: Dr Bill Hughes
Dickens Room
44 Helena McBurney (King’s College, London) Submersive subversives: Encoded sexual fluidity in Hans Christian Andersen’s other mermaidstory
46 Deborah Moumane (University of Hertfordshire) Exploring female sexual expression through merfolk encounters in The Cruel Prince and A Court of Silver Flames
68 Georgia Toumara (Independent Scholar) ‘[O]h, love, at last!’: Dangerous nereids and deadly encounters in George Horton’s Aphróessa: A Legend of Argolis, and Other Poems (1897)
24 9:50 – 10:50 Plenary 4: Mermaid glitter: Fish scales, queer plastic and vibrant femininities Eliot Room
Prof. Catherine Spooner (University of Lancaster)
Introduced by Sam George
25 10:50 – 11:00 Tea/ Coffee Break
26 11:00 – 12:00 Parallel Session: Panels 19 and 20
19 The divine and monstrous feminine Chair: Dr Emma Dee
Eliot Room
5 Allison Allen-Byrd (Independent scholar) The metaphysics of Melusine: A tale of alchemy and initiation, reclaiming the Goddess
13 Dr Maria-Silvia Cohut (Brunel University London) The Sirens’ silence: Uneasy matriarchy in Lucile Hadžihalilović’s Evolution
41 Agnieszka Łowczanin (University of Łódź) Water nymphs in Polish Romanticism: Pagan justice and feminine power
20 Mermaids of poetry Chair: Dr Daisy Butcher
Dickens Room
24 Jane Gill (University of Hertfordshire) The Romantic Lamia and Anne Bannerman’s ‘The Mermaid’ (1800)
33 Dominique Ionnone (University of Salerno) Undulant shapes of murderous femininity: Tennyson’s aquatic creatures
50 Dr Ivan Phillips (University of Hertfordshire) We heard the sweet bells over the bay’: What links Matthew Arnold’s ‘The Forsaken Merman’,Robert Rampling’s landscape art and the legend of Jinny Greenteeth?
27 12:00 – 12:45 Session: Panel 21 (2 papers)
21 Water-women of Japan Chair: AAssoc. Prof. Sam George
Eliot Room
14 Dr Joseph Crawford (University of Exeter) ‘The girl whose eyes were like the ocean’: Yuri manga and queer monstrosity in This Monster Wants to Eat Me
47 Dr Izumi Nagai (Osaka Metropolitan University) ‘A girl who came from the bottom of the sea’: Gothic and feminist aspects in Hiroko Katayama’s Tanka poetry
28 12:45 – 13:30 Lunch
29 13:30 – 14:30 Parallel Session: Panels 22 and 23
22 Oceanic postcolonialism Chair: Dr Daisy Butcher
Eliot Room
2 Shabnam Ahsan (University of Hertfordshire) Transgression And transformation: Mer-human relationships in the tales Of Ruth ManningSanders
37 Shahrukh Khan (The English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad) Indian ocean studies: Transoceanic memory in postcolonial Gothic sea fiction
60 Dr Maria Szafrańska-Chmielarz (University of Warsaw) An impossible outsider: Singaporean mermaid in Amanda Lee Koe’s Siren
23 Selkies and ecocriticism Chair: Dr Imke Lichterfeld
Dickens Room
9 Dr Tina Burger (Heinrich-Heine University of Düsseldorf) The Constant selkie and the changing sea: Fluid queer identities, interspecies kinship andambivalent seascapes in Molly Knox Ostertag’s The Girl from the Sea
66 Harley Tillotson (University of Hertfordshire) Selkies and adolescence: An eco-Gothic reading of anxieties in Tides
70 Marion Troxler (University of Bern) Merfolk and the beach: Resisting dualisms with tooth and scales
30 14:30 – 15:30 Parallel Session: Panels 24 and 25
24 Ambivalent selkies Chair: Assoc. Prof. Sam George
Eliot Room
31 Dr Bill Hughes (Open Graves, Open Minds Project) Genre and gender in contemporary selkie fiction
23 Dr Monica Germanà (University of Westminster) ‘Becoming with Seal’: Mourning, separation, and kinship in contemporary selkie soundscapes
72 Heru Wang (Lingnan University) Selkie without seal skin: Mythmaking and storytelling in Fiona Macleod’s rewriting of Selkie Tales
25 Traumatic water-folk Chair: Harley Tillotson
Dickens Room
77 Claire Cunningham (Lancaster University) Wet brown graves: Irish Gothic bog bodies in Seamus Heaney and Miranda Carr
30 Fred Hook (Queen’s University, Kingston)
‘The struggle of one thing twisting into another and back again’: The re-enchantment of the sea lung in Julia Armfield’s Our Wives Under the Sea
62 Stefanie Tegeler (University of Münster) Dead in the water: Narrating trauma through Tolkien’s dead in the marshes and Rowling’s Inferi
31 15:30 – 15:40 Break
32 15:40 – 16:40 Session: Panel 26
26 Mermaids, Undines and the Arts Chair: Dr Ivan Phillips
Eliot Room
19 Dr Andrew Elfenbein (University of Minnesota) Burne-Jones’s A Sea-Nymph and the displaced mermaid
32 Victoria Hurtado (Independent scholar) The fantastical narratives of Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué and Richard Wagner, featuringundines, illustrated by Arthur Rackham. Are those realms of enchantment under threat?
56 Dr Francesca Sawaya (College of William & Mary) Mermaid ballets in the twentieth century
33 16:40 – 16:55 Closing Remarks Eliot Room
Dr Bill Hughes (OGOM Project)