ENG556: Moby Dick

Journey with Ishmael as he sails on a Nantucket whaling ship under the command of the despotic Captain Ahab on his mad hunt for the great white whale. Subversive, queer, philosophical, political and groundbreakingly experimental, Herman Melville's great masterpiece is an epic prose poem that not only strikes through the mask of America's democratic idealism, piety, exceptionalism and capitalistic zeal but also sets its gaze on a still young nation's original sins of racism and environmental destruction. It is the story of rugged individualism, of brotherhood, of faith and of existing in the doubts. It is also just the story about all of us trying to hunt down our monsters as we stare into the abyss to see what stares back. Students will keep a whaling journal, write regular critical reactions to readings and present a final project on a topic from the book.