Department of English

"So, what did you do this semester?" "Oh, not much, y'know...just read Moby-Dick." The payoff: Not only is your interlocutor suitably impressed you've read that Big Book everybody's too intimidated to come near, but you alone secretly know how hilarious, over-the-top, and in every way exhilarating it turns out to be. Sharing your bed with a sexy, tattooed cannibal! Almost drowning inside a dead whale's head! Getting wasted with Captain Ahab! "I have written a wicked book, and feel spotless as the lamb," Melville confided to his pal Hawthorne upon completing it.

We'll spend the whale's share of our time in this class with Melville's masterpiece, but we'll also dip into some of his excellent shorter fiction and look at some of the scholarship his work has inspired. In addition to short writing responses throughout the semester, students will be expected to write a longer seminar paper at the end of the class.