Instructor: Chris Apap
Course Time: MWR 9:45-11:50
General Education: Literature
Term: Summer I -  2013

DESCRIPTION:

This course will explore how a novel that made a relatively small splash in American culture before the Civil War came to be seen as one of the most interesting attempts at the “Great American Novel”—and how the figures of the White Whale and Ahab became so ubiquitous in American culture that they could become jokes in both Progressive Insurance commercials and on Sesame Street. The first half of the course will comprise a detailed reading of Moby-Dick that will take us through the midterm exam. During this segment, we will engage in close readings of the novel at the same time that we will delve into Melville’s sources from the popular culture of his day—including the Bible, newspapers, whaling culture, slavery, Indian Removal, travel narratives, and the antebellum fascination with Shakespeare. We will then turn to the reactions that Melville’s work has engendered in the last 150 years. We will attend to the filmic versions of the novel, the radio play, MAD magazine spoofs, graphic novels, Jaws, Star Trek, literary “re-imaginings” like Sena Jeter Naslund’s Ahab’s Wife and even the invocation, after 9/11, of the war on terror as an “Ahab-like” obsession

REQUIREMENTS:

Course Requirements include lots of engaged class participation, four 1-2 page writing drills, a mid-term essay exam, a research exercise, one brief presentation, and a final paper. We will review drafts of each other’s papers and revise our final papers.

Required Texts:
Herman Melville, Moby-Dick
Sena Jeter Naslund, Ahab’s Wife
Ray Bradbury, Leviathan 99