ENGL 051F. Moby-Dick


Hailed as a masterpiece of U.S. fiction, Herman Melville's Moby-Dick; or, The Whale (1851) is a genre-defying work that pulls epic, romantic, dramatic, scientific, and historiographic forms into its literary vortex. The cosmic scope and metaphysical complexity of this text have enthralled, and sometimes left stranded, many an intrepid reader. Members of this course will embark on a semester-long study of a text that has become a key touchstone for writers, artists, philosophers, and political thinkers alike. Guided by their own close-readings of Moby-Dick and selected contemporaneous texts drawn from their own archival research, students will engage with the historical and cultural contexts in which the novel was written, including the proliferation of new forms of print media, the rise of industrial capitalism, continuing processes of enslavement and indigenous dispossession, and U.S. expansionist efforts across the hemisphere and the globe. At once a rigorous and irreverent meditation on literary form and knowledge-production, Moby-Dick will serve as a crucial point of departure for students' own critical explorations in and beyond the major.

Students should have completed strong work in prior classes in cultural studies, U.S. literature, history, and/or theory (including colonial/postcolonial studies), preferably including both at least one mid-level English literature course and an advanced course in other humanities or social sciences departments or interdisciplinary programs.

Limited to 15 students. For English Literature majors and minors, this course will count as an 18th/19th century course towards the historical distribution requirements.
Humanities.
1 credit.
Catalog chapter: English Literature  
Department website: https://www.swarthmore.edu/english-literature


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