“The Mermaid Renaissance“– a lecture conjoined with the exhibit “To Catch a Fish” (2026)
Friday, October 9 – 10:30am
Mingei International Museum
San Diego, CA

To Catch a Fish in 21st century contemporary culture is pretty easy, as mermaids are everywhere these days. From literature to film, art to advertising, mermaid museums to mermaid conferences (mercons), mermaids are surfacing and demanding attention. Today’s mermaids defy expectations of alabaster skin and blond hair, Christian ideals of female sexuality, and other genre conventions solidified in the wake of Hans Christen Andersen’s The Little Mermaid (1837) and Disney’s famous animated adaptation of it (1989). Today’s mermaids are Black and Brown, sexually fluid, and grounded in indigeneity. They rage against human destruction of the oceans and global capitalism but are also very much part of the contemporary culture industry— from mermaid kitsch to “MermaidCore” fashion.

Hosted by Dr. Jessica Pressman, Professor of English and Comparative Literature at San Diego State University and mermaid scholar, this talk considers what we can learn by taking seriously the contemporary mermaid renaissance, catching a fish or two and carefully examining these examples as a means of understanding the larger current. What might mermaids—from contemporary culture AND Mingei’s exhibition—tell us about culture’s most pressing anxieties and concerns, past and present?

Registration required: https://mingei.org/events/lecture/art-break-24-2

Talk title: “Becoming Mermaids: Contemporary Mermaid Stories as Survival Strategies”
Panel: “The Contemporary Mermaid Renaissance: History, Consciousness, and Survival”
January 10, 2026
MLA Conference, Los Angeles, CA