Course Description:

Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick is the big book of American literature. Massive in scope and scale (its nearly 800 pages depict an obsessive trek to kill a great whale, the detailed history and process of whaling, critiques of slavery and freedom in the young American nation, meditations on a changing natural environment, and much more), the novel is genre-defying and gloriously poetic, cosmic and complex, historical and hilarious. The book has commanded and challenged attention and judgment since its publication in 1851, and it continues to do so in ever-emerging adaptations across media forms and readerships.

This course invites students to read this Great American Novel collaboratively and collectively as a community. We will situate the book in its historical context— the expanding debate over slavery, U.S. expansionist politics, industrial capitalism, and much more—as well as its relevance to our contemporary historical moment (the age of dictators, global capitalism, ecological damage, and more). We will consider this novel as a touchstone for understanding the operations of literary value, taste, and culture; for, Melville’s novel was a flop in its time and had to be recuperated in the early decades of the 20^th century.  We will also explore how this novel invites contemporary concerns and modes of study, including the emergent fields of ecocriticism and Blue Humanities. We will read the novel, along with relevant criticism from across more than a century, bolstered by selected adaptations and supporting documents.

This course offers a rare opportunity to dive deep into Moby-Dick to navigate its ripples and currents, to ask “why” this work remains so relevant, to understand and appreciate it as a literary text and a historical document.

Learning Outcomes

In this class, you will

• Learn to close read a literary text for aesthetic and historical components.
• Situate literature/art in historical context so as to understand how cultural production constitutes and constructs history and society.
• Examine how a work of literature achieves canonical value and status by way of external, social, and political forces.
• Trace a longer history of contemporary issues back to mid-19^th century America: including tyrannical leadership, polarized perspectives, race/gender/class conflicts, ecological destruction, and more.
• Hone your skills as a critical thinker, listener, and writer by focusing on the development of a thesis statement and the ability to prove it through textual explication

Administrative Information

Class Meetings:  TTH; 2:00-3:15pm Hepner Hall 206	Course Website:  https://fall2025-ecl522.jessicapressman.com/
Professor’s Office: AL 261 Office hours: Thursdays 11-12 AND Additional times and dates by appointment; email me for an additional appointment (in-person or on Zoom) out of the regular office hours timeslot.   Zoom meeting room: 943 624 7815 https://SDSU.zoom.us/my/jpressman	Email: [email protected] *Do not expect a response within 24 hours
English Subject Librarian: Markel Tumlin Special Collections Librarian: Anna Culbertson	[email protected] [email protected]

NOTE: This syllabus is subject to change… and probably will change!