I’m delighted to be teaching an online course on Herman Melville’s magisterial novel, Moby-Dick, this summer as part of a Virtual Summer Festival of Learning at the Institute for Continuing Education at the University of Cambridge. After our normal summer programmes were cancelled due to COVID-19, it didn’t look like we’d be able to do anything at all this summer. Luckily, the team have worked hard to bring students a new form of course that are open to everyone, anywhere in the world.
The course will run from 6 to 10 July 2020 and will consist of pre-recorded lectures - to be watched at your leisure over the week of the course - and an online discussion with students and with me. I’m really pleased with how the lectures have turned out and I hope they’ll be illuminating for even old aficionados of the novel. They cover:
Melville’s life and early career
Melville’s relationship with Nathaniel Hawthorne and how it profoundly altered the shape of Moby-Dick
Captain Ahab’s dictatorial tendencies
Religious symbolism and mystical experiences in Moby-Dick
Melville’s treatment of race and slavery in the novel
More information about the course and instructions for how to register can be found here