ENGL 26
Reading Moby-Dick on a Whaler Winter 2020

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If you’ve never read Moby-Dick, you might still think that’s a heroic adventure story about humanity’s struggle against the sea-the sort of book, in other words, that we give young readers, a cracking yarn, like Treasure Island only much longer. You might wonder, then, why so many people think it’s the greatest novel ever written. You might be all the more puzzled to learn that no-one liked Moby-Dick when it was first published. Almost nobody read it. Herman Melville died thinking the book had been a total failure. Moby-Dick is peculiar, to be sure: an adventure story without much adventure nor even much story, a novel that doesn’t read like a novel-a funny, joking, frightened, philosophical, and extravagant kind of book, a book that pushes readers to figure out their most fundamental attitudes towards the planet. In this class, we will read Moby-Dick and only Moby-Dick, and we will do so while living in a nineteenth-century whaling port, at Williams-Mystic, the College’s coastal and ocean studies campus in Mystic, CT. Students will discuss Moby-Dick in the morning and learn nineteenth-century maritime skills in the afternoon: blacksmithing, carving, chantey singing, boat building, letterpress printing, sailmaking, etc. They will have extensive access to nineteenth-century tall ships throughout.
The Class: Format: travel
Limit: 12
Grading: pass/fail only
Requirements/Evaluation: 10-page paper
Prerequisites: none
Enrollment Preferences: first-years and sophomores
Materials/Lab Fee: $530
Attributes: TRVL Winter Study Travel Course

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