Monday,  June 21 - Loomings: New Bedford and the Land Chapters

9:45am EST: Mustering of Crew for Departure

Readings in Moby-Dick: Chapters 1-22: Extracts, Etymology, “Loomings” to “Merry Christmas,” 1-90:

Moby-Diction word search: http://mobydiction.com

Morning (10:00-12:00)

Part 1: All Astir

  1. Welcome: from New Bedford Whaling Museum Director Amanda Mullen (10)

  2. Introductions from Program Manager, Co-Directors, and Lead Faculty (10)

  3. Monkey Rope Breakouts (10)

  4. Introduction to Annotation Studio and Digital Resources — Erica Zimmer (25)

  5. Break (5)

Part 2: Loomings

  1. The Beginning (10)

  2. Lowering into three crews: “The Spouter Inn,” “The Counterpane,” “The Sermon” (25)

  3. Group Discussion (20) What is circulating through the opening chapters?

    1. Herman Melville’s New Bedford, New Bedford National Historical Park, National Park Service (Take this “walking tour” for an understanding of Melville’s circulations in New Bedford that form the first 13 chapters of Moby-Dick.)

    2. How is Ishmael “on tour” in the beginning? What experiences/impressions/themes is he collecting?

  4. Wrap-Up, Final Questions (10)

Lunch (12:30-1:30, optional): Join us at the Scuttle Butt for lunchtime chat. This time is yours to explore themes, ask questions, share findings, seek collaborators, meet visitors (alums, lecturers, friends), and enjoy special video or digital resources.

Failed Readings: The Challenge of Reading Moby-Dick

Stories of how we were eaten by Moby-Dick

1:15:  Mary K  Bercaw Edwards on Harrison Hayford theory of “Unnecessary Duplicates”

Afternoon (1:30-3:30):  Faculty Panel: Melville’s Life and Work before Moby-Dick

Institute Faculty will present important events and elements of Melville’s family background and life that led up to and help to explain his composition of Moby-Dick and the effect of that book on his career.

  • Part 1: Panel on Contexts for Reading Moby-Dick 1:30-2:30 (6 minutes each; 15 minutes discussion)

  1. Trauma in Melville’s Family and Early Life (Chris Sten)

    1. Melville in New Bedford (Bob Wallace)

    2. Melville at Sea (Mary K. Bercaw Edwards)

    3. Melville’s First Five Novels (Jennifer Baker)

    4. Melville’s Reading and Sources (Wyn Kelley)

    5. Reviews of Moby-Dick and Effect on Melville’s Career (Tim Marr)

Participant questions via chat.

  • Workshop 2:30-3:30: Mark Procknik, Librarian of the New Bedford Whaling Museum, Whaling Logs, Maps, Nautical Archives, and the Material Culture of Whaling

Readings:

  1. Wyn Kelley, “Melville’s Life,” from Herman Melville: An Introduction (Blackwell, 2008), 3-11,

  2. Andrew Delbanco, “Extracts, Preface, and Introduction,” Melville: His World and His Work (Knopf 2005), xiii-16.

  3. Robert K. Wallace, “In the Whaling City” from Melville and Douglass: Anchored Together in a Neighborly Style (Spinner Publications, 2005), 15-22, which traces the circulations of Herman Melville and Frederick Douglass as they were in New Bedford at the same time.

Other Supplemental Resources

  1. Explanatory Notes from the 1952 Hendricks House Edition by Luther S. Mansfield and Howard P. Vincent

  2. Robert Milder, “Herman Melville, 1819-1891: A Brief Biography,” in A Historical Guide to Herman Melville. Ed. Giles Gunn (Oxford, 2005), 17-58;

  3. Seaman’s Bethel, New Bedford Whaling, National Park Service

  4. New Bedford Port Society Historical District Tour by Bruce Barnes: Where the Whaling City Began (48 minutes)

Tuesday, June 22: Departures: “Blindly Plunging Like Fate into the Lone Atlantic”

Morning

Chapters 23-32, “The Lee Shore” to “Cetology,” pp. 91-118; Melville’s Letters to  Hawthorne and others while writing Moby-Dick (also in NCE 559-76); “Hawthorne and His Mosses” (also in NCE 544-558)

Annotations: Chapter 23, “The Lee Shore” an Chapter 32, “Cetology”

  • All Astir Announcements, Overview (10)

  • Part 1 A Squeeze of the Hand: Social Annotation and Discussion (45)

  1. “The Lee Shore”

    1. “Cetology”

  • Break (5)

  • Part 2 Knights and Squires: Shipboard Dramas of Gender and Power

  1. Crew Explorations: Knights and Squires: Ahab; Mates; Harpooneers (25)

    1. Group Discussion (25)

    2. Wrap-Up (10)

Crew Explorations: Knights and Squires: Ahab; Mates; Harpooneers

Lunch        Melville Scholarship on Gender

1:15: Melville’s Mother and Sisters

Afternoon       Life at Sea

  • Part 1: Talk: Jennifer Baker on Gender and the Man’s World of Moby-Dick (Talk 30, Q&A 25, Break 5)

  • Part 2: Discussion (40)

  1. Bob Wallace on Melville and Douglass (10)

    1. Wyn Kelley on Melville and Hawthorne (10)

    2. Group Discussion (20)

  2. Wrap Up and Prep (10)

Supplemental Readings:

  1. Rita Bode, “Suckled by the Sea,” Melville and Women, Eds. Elizabeth Schultz and Haskell Springer (Kent State Press, 2006), 181-198.

  2. Ellen Weinauer, “Melville and Masculinity,” DRAFT CHAPTER. In A New Companion to Herman Melville. Ed. Wyn Kelley and Christopher Ohge. Wiley, 2021 (forthcoming).

Wednesday, June 23: The Sperm Whale and its Whiteness

Morning          Chapters 33-42, “The Specksynder” to “The Whiteness of the Whale,” pp. 118-158; “Hawthorne and His Mosses” and Letters to Hawthorne and others while writing Moby-Dick

Annotation    Chapter 35, “The Mast-Head” and Chapter 36. “The Quarter-Deck”

Lunch     12:30 “Grand Panorama of a Whaling Voyage ‘Round the World,” Spectacle in Motion, New Bedford Whaling Museum, a 34-minute documentary moves through the 1848 panorama of a whaling voyage by Benjamin Russell and Caleb Purrington — the longest painting in the world.

1:05 Presentation on Mystic Seaport’s 38th Voyage, epic journey of their whaling ship, the Charles W. Morgan in 2014

Afternoon         Part 1 Talk: Mary K Bercaw Edwards on Melville, Whaling, and the Hunt

Part 2 Workshop Participants meet in groups and with lead faculty to discuss  themes, pedagogy, and final presentations.

Supplemental Readings:

  1. Ben Schmidt, “American Whaling Mapped” (three minute visualization of 19-century whaling voyages from logbooks collected in the 19th century by Lt. Matthew Maury);

  2. Walter E. Bezanson, “Uncommon Common Sailor,” in Melville’s Evermoving Dawn: Centennial Essays. Eds. John Bryant and Robert Milder (Kent University Press, 1997): 31-57.

  3. Mary K. Bercaw Edwards, “Ships, Whaling, and the Sea,” in A Companion to Herman Melville. Ed. Wyn Kelley (Blackwell Publishing, 2006), 83-97.

  4. Mystic Seaport’s 38th Voyage, epic journey of their whaling ship, the Charles W. Morgan, in 2014.

  5. A Moby-Dick Tour Through the New Bedford Whaling Museum, guided by Institute Faculty members (7 minutes)

3:30pm EST (following short break): Family Gathering: Sea Chanteys by Craig Edwards

Thursday, June 21: Art and Moby-Dick

Morning          Chapters 43-57, “Hark!” to “Of Whales in Paint; In Teeth’ In Wood; In Sheet-Iron; In Stone; In Mountains; In Stars,” pp. 157-213’

Annotation:     Chapter 50: “Ahab’s Boat and Crew–Fedallah,” and Chapter 54: “The Town-Ho’s Story”

Lunch    12:30-1:15: Professional involvement and academic engagement in Melville Studies: Introduction to the Melville Society, the journal Leviathan, and the upcoming conference in France

1:15: Jeff Markham on experiential pedagogy in teaching Moby-Dick 

Afternoon

Part 1 Talk:  Bob Wallace on Visual Art and Moby-Dick: Sources, Appropriations, and Creativity

Part 2: Workshop:  Jeff Markham on Visual Journals

Supplemental Readings:

  1. Elizabeth Schultz, Unpainted to the Last: Moby-Dick and Twentieth-Century Art. Kansas, 1995, pp. 123-160, 358-361, color plates of Moby-Dick art, part 1, part 2

  2. Robert K. Wallace, “Words and Shapes on Paper: Art in the Melville Society Archive,” Leviathan (2020)

  3. Wallace, “Moby-Dick and the Arts in the Early Twenty-First Century,” in Moby-Dick. Norton Critical, 3rd edition, 2018, 692-701.

  4. Jeffrey Markham, “‘Of Whales in Paint’: Melville in the High School Classroom.” DRAFT CHAPTER. In A New Companion to Herman Melville. Ed. Wyn Kelley and Christopher Ohge. Wiley, 2021 (forthcoming).

  5. Michael P. Dyer (Maritime Curator, New Bedford Whaling Museum), “Visualizing Melville: An Exhibition of Words, Ideas, Images, and Objects,” from 2021 Marathon (54 minutes); and Dyer, “Visualizing Melville: A Museum Exhibition Perspective,” DRAFT CHAPTER. In A New Companion to Herman Melville. Ed. Wyn Kelley and Christopher Ohge. Wiley, 2021 (forthcoming).

Friday, June 25: The Common Continent of Men: Race in Moby-Dick    

Morning          Chapters 58-71, “Brit” to ” “The Jeroboam’s Story”,” pp. 213-243.

Annotation    Chapter 58, “Brit” and Chapter 60, “The Line”

Afternoon        Faculty Panel, Discussions, and Workshop on Race in Moby-Dick 

Supplemental Readings:

  1. Robert K. Wallace. Melville and Douglass Anchored Together in Neighborly Style, Spinner, 2005.

  2. Christopher Freeburg, “Knowing the Bottomless Deep,” from Melville and the Idea of Blackness. Cambridge, 2012, pp. 20-60.

  3. James Noel, “Diversity, Reading Publics, and the Community College,” DRAFT CHAPTER. In A New Companion to Herman Melville. Ed. Wyn Kelley and Christopher Ohge. Wiley, 2021 (forthcoming).

Michael Sawyer, “The Pequod as Middle Passage: Melville’s Meditation on the ‘Long’ Shipwreck,” DRAFT CHAPTER. In A New Companion to Herman Melville. Ed. Wyn Kelley and Christopher Ohge. Wiley, 2021 (forthcoming)

Monday, June 28: Head and Tails and What’s Between

Morning          Chapters 72-86, “The Monkey-Rope” to “The Tail,” pp. 243-283;

Afternoon      Talk: Michael Moore, Director of Marine Mammal Center and Senior Scientist, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, and author of We Are All Whalers: The Plight of Whales and Our Responsibility (Chicago: October 2021)

Supplemental Reading:

  1. Philip Armstrong. “What Animals Mean, in Moby-Dick, For Example,” Textual Practice, vol.19, no.1, 2005, pp. 93-111.

  2. Jennifer Baker, “Anatomy,” DRAFT CHAPTER. In A New Companion to Herman Melville. Ed. Wyn Kelley and Christopher Ohge. Wiley, 2021 (forthcoming).

Tuesday, June 29: The Body and its Work(s)

Morning          Chapters 87-96, “The Grand Armada” to “The Try-Works,” pp. 284-314.

Afternoon       Talk: Christopher Sten on Trauma and Recovery in Moby-Dick

Supplemental Readings

  1. Judith Herman. Selection fromTrauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence, Basic, 2015.

  2. Chris Sten. Sounding the Whale: Moby-Dick as Epic Novel, Chicago, 1996.

  3. Cindy Weinstein. “Melville’s Operatives,” The Literature of Labor and the Labors of Literature: Allegory in Nineteenth-Century American Fiction, Cambridge, 1995, pp. 87-128.

Wednesday, June 30: Breachings and Afterlives

Morning          Chapters 97-117, “The Lamp” to “The Try-Works,” pp. 314-362.

Lunch        View David Schaerf, Call Us Ishmael (2019; 78 minutes)

Afternoon    Talk: Tim Marr on Breachings in Popular Culture

Supplemental Readings

  1. Timothy Marr. “Kraken: Moby-Dick in Popular Culture,” Moby-Dick, Norton Critical, 3rd edition, 2018, pp. 681-686.

  2. Mary K. Bercaw Edwards and Wyn Kelley. “Melville and the Spoken Word,” Moby-Dick, Norton Critical, 3rd edition, 2018, pp. 686-692.

Thursday, July 1: The Chase, the End, and the Orphan

Morning          Chapter 118-Epilogue: “The Quadrant” to Epilogue,  362-410.

Afternoon    Talk: Matt Kish on Visual Transformations of Moby-Dick

Supplemental Readings

  1. Matt Kish. Moby-Dick in Pictures: One Drawing for Every Page, Tin House Books, 2011.

  2. Matt Kish. “Art and Illustration,” DRAFT CHAPTER. In A New Companion to Herman Melville, edited by Wyn Kelley and Christopher Ohge, Wiley, 2021 (forthcoming).

Monday, July 5

Evening           7:00pm Family Film Showing of Moby Dick, Dir. John Huston (1956);

Ray Bradbury’s shooting screenplay

Supplemental Readings:

  1. John Bryant, “Rewriting Moby-Dick: Politics, Textual Identity, and the Revision Narrative,” PMLA, vol. 125, no. 4, October, 2010, pp. 1043-1060;

  2. Jaime Campomar, “Melville and Film Adaptation: The Lives and Deaths of Pip,” DRAFT CHAPTER. In A New Companion to Herman Melville. Ed. Wyn Kelley and Christopher Ohge. Wiley, 2021 (forthcoming).

  3. Martina Pfeifer. “Hunting Moby Dick: Melville in the Global Context of the American Studies Classroom,” Leviathan: A Journal of Melville Studies, vol 15, no. 3, 2013, pp. 81-89.

Tuesday, July 6 

Discussion of Huston/ Bradbury film

Presentations on Digital Resources

Wyn Kelley and Erica Zimmer on participatory and digital engagements

Wednesday, July 7

Virtual Tour of Melville’s Arrowhead, Berkshire Historical Society

Teacher Presentations

Thursday, July 8

Teacher Presentations

Friday July 9: Teaching, After All

Teacher Presentations