Steve Mentz

THE BOOKFISH

THALASSOLOGY, SHAKESPEARE, AND SWIMMING

  • Home
  • Steve Mentz
  • Humanities Commons
  • Public Writing
  • The sea! the sea!
  • The Bookfish
  • St. Johns

Ferdinand and Miranda

November 12, 2010 by Steve Mentz 11 Comments

Via bloggingshakespeare.com, here’s an interesting post & slideshow about our young lovers —

Blogging shakespeare

Filed Under: Uncategorized

The Tempest at the bottom of the pool

November 11, 2010 by Steve Mentz Leave a Comment

Here’s an image from Cutting Ball’s now-playing San Francisco Tempest, which is set, in director Rob Melrose’s phrase, “in a psychiatrist’s office at the bottom of a swimming pool” —

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Nile River Delta by Night

November 9, 2010 by Steve Mentz 2 Comments

Thanks to Lang Davison for the link.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Two exercises for E. 110 students

November 8, 2010 by Steve Mentz 4 Comments

I’d like each of you to do two quick things before class tomorrow night.

First, choose a book from among Peter Greenaway’s fantasia of Prospero’s two dozen volumes.  Write two or three sentences that show how this particular book unlocks some hidden truth or logic within Shakespeare’s play.

Second, choose any other text from this week’s assignment in “Rewritings and Appropriations.”  Write two or three sentences showing how that creative work speaks to your own seminar project.

Please be prepared to share these with the class tomorrow night.

Filed Under: E. 110 Fall 2010, Uncategorized

Caliban upon Setebos

November 8, 2010 by Steve Mentz Leave a Comment

Our Norton Tempest has only a slice of Robert Browning’s great poem, “Caliban upon Setebos.”  The rest can be found at this link, and it’s very much worth reading.

Robert Browning, “Caliban upon Setebos” (1864)

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Derek Owens on Composition and Sustainability

October 12, 2010 by Steve Mentz 6 Comments

I’m looking forward to reading your short papers, which should start rolling into my email inbox any hour now.  As we all get ready for our next meeting, on Oct 19, here’s a link to our special guest Derek Owens’s 2001 book, *Composition and Sustainability*.  The whole text is online.  Read as much as you like, but at least the preface plus the first & last chapters.  (That’s a good model for dipping into a scholarly book, btw — first chapter, then the last, then see what you need from the middle.)

Composition and Sustainability

Filed Under: Uncategorized

“Let us spurn earthly things”

September 27, 2010 by Steve Mentz 10 Comments

We’ll likely spend most of our time tomorrow night on 20c responses to The Tempest, esp Cesaire’s and some of the other modern critics.  (Lamming seems to have aroused some interest already.)  But I wanted to put a word in early for the little snippets of source text that precede those essays, inc Pico’s “Oration,” from which the title of this post comes.

These snippets are hard to read (esp the shorter ones), and sometimes hard to follow (esp when excerpted), but they repay the effort.  Pico’s phrase might help us think about the philosophical basis for Prospero’s treatment of Caliban (whom he calls “thou earth” in 1.2), and more broadly about intellectual aspiration and what it does in this play.

For any who are wanting to work on post-colonial readings, too, I strongly suggest looking closely at Samuel Purchas (93-5), who gives a succinct summary of the reasons Englishmen felt justified in colonizing the New World.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Maritime Quarters

September 24, 2010 by Steve Mentz Leave a Comment

Guam (found at Starbuck’s in the Baltimore Hyatt during the Maritime Heritage Conference last week) went to Olivia.  Northern Marianas Islands (found this morning at St. John’s) to Ian.

The wages of coffee…

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Thalassological Readings

September 16, 2010 by Steve Mentz Leave a Comment

For my grad class for next week’s reading, here are pdf versions of two articles that give you a pretty good idea of my recent work in maritime ecocriticism.  When I get back from this conference, I’ll post a little bit more background, but in case you want to get started reading, here they are.

Strange Weather in King Lear

Toward a Blue Cultural Studies

Note: I’m having some trouble with the first link.  I’ll try to repair it but might not get to that until tomorrow (Fri).  You can also find that article in the journal *Shakespeare*.

Seems to work now!  Let me know if you have any problems.

Filed Under: E. 110 Fall 2010, Uncategorized

Maritime Heritage Conference

September 16, 2010 by Steve Mentz Leave a Comment

I’m in Baltimore today & tomorrow, giving a talk about the Folger show and chairing a panel on maritime lit.  Here’s the view of the Inner Harbor.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

  • « Previous Page
  • 1
  • …
  • 36
  • 37
  • 38
  • 39
  • 40
  • …
  • 42
  • Next Page »

About Steve

Steve Mentz
Professor of English
St. John’s University
Read Bio

Pages

  • Coastal Studies Reading Group
  • Public Writing
  • OCEAN Publicity
  • Audio and Video Recordings
  • Oceanic New York
  • #shax2022 s31: Rethinking the Early Modern Literary Caribbbean
  • #SAA 2020: Watery Thinking
  • Creating Nature: May 2019 at the Folger
  • Published Work
  • #pluralizetheanthropocene

Recent Posts

  • Dream at the Bridge
  • A Wild West Romeo at the Globe
  • Othello on Broadway
  • Books of ’24
  • “We Are Your Robots” at Tfana

Copyright © 2025 · News Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in