Overview

Why Captain Ahab is worthy of our fear-and our compassion Herman Melville's Captain Ahab is perennially seen as the paradigm of a controlling, tyrannical agent. Ahab Unbound leaves his position as a Cold War icon behind, recasting him as a contingent figure, transformed by his environment-by chemistry, electromagnetism, entomology, meteorology, diet, illness, pain, trauma, and neurons firing-in ways that unexpectedly force us to see him as worthy of our empathy and our compassion. In sixteen essays by leading scholars, Ahab Unbound advances an urgent inquiry into Melville's emergence as a center of gravity for materialist work, reframing his infamous whaling captain in terms of pressing conversations in animal studies, critical race and ethnic studies, disability studies, environmental humanities, medical humanities, political theory, and posthumanism. By taking Ahab as a focal point, we gather and give shape to the multitude of ways that materialism produces criticism in our current moment. Collectively, these readings challenge our thinking about the boundaries of both persons and nations, along with the racist and environmental violence caused by categories like the person and the human. Ahab Unbound makes a compelling case for both the vitality of materialist inquiry and the continued resonance of Melville's work. Contributors: Branka Arsi, Columbia U; Christopher Castiglia, Pennsylvania State U; Colin Dayan, Vanderbilt U; Christian P. Haines, Pennsylvania State U; Bonnie Honig, Brown U; Jonathan Lamb, Vanderbilt U; Pilar Martnez Bened, U of L'Aquila, Italy; Steve Mentz, St. John's College; John Modern, Franklin and Marshall College; Mark D. Noble, Georgia State U; Samuel Otter, U of California, Berkeley; Donald E. Pease, Dartmouth College; Ralph James Savarese, Grinnell College; Russell Sbriglia, Seton Hall U; Michael D. Snediker, U of Houston; Matthew A. Taylor, U of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Ivy Wilson, Northwestern U.

Full Product Details

Author:   Meredith Farmer ,  Jonathan D. S. Schroeder
Publisher:   University of Minnesota Press
Imprint:   University of Minnesota Press
Dimensions:   Width: 15.20cm , Height: 5.10cm , Length: 22.90cm
ISBN:  

9781517907549

ISBN 10:   1517907543
Pages:   464
Publication Date:   19 April 2022
Audience:   General/trade ,  Professional and scholarly ,  General ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Temporarily unavailable  
The supplier advises that this item is temporarily unavailable. It will be ordered for you and placed on backorder. Once it does come back in stock, we will ship it out to you.

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Meredith Farmer is assistant teaching professor in English and the Environmental Program at Wake Forest University. She is author of the forthcoming book Melville's Leaks: Science, Materialism, and the Reconstitution of Persons. Jonathan D. S. Schroeder is visiting assistant professor of American studies at Brandeis University.

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