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American Literature before 1865 II: Melville and Poe

Session 8 - Sunday 2:45-4:15pm
Eiben Hall 207
Presiding Officer: 
Cheryl Edelson
Session Chair (if other than PO): 
Martin Kevorkian
  1. Strange Vessels: Epistemology and the Seafaring Feminine in 'The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket'. Kelly Bushnell, Mills College

    ‘The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym,’ Poe’s only novel-length fiction, appears to expel all things female, yet I argue for the pervasiveness of what I have termed the ‘seafaring feminine,’ culminating in a new reading of the much-debated ending.

  2. At the Limits of History: Melville’s Battle-Pieces and the Corpse of the Battle-Piece. Brenda Sanfilippo, University of California, Santa Cruz

    Places Melville's Battle-Pieces in the over 2500-year trajectory of the "battle-piece," a mode of representing battles in history and the arts.

  3. Ahab’s Star Turn: Representation and Democracy in Moby-Dick. David Gardner, University of Pennsylvania

    This paper argues that by attending to Moby-Dick’s relationship to the 19th-century stage—and particularly to the theatre’s “star system”—we can better understand the book’s nuanced attitude toward the contemporary practice of representative democracy.

Session Type: 
Standing Session
Session Status: 
Closed