Author Archives: Kit Jackson

EXTRA CREDIT: QUESTIONS FOR STEVE MENTZ

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While you may never read this post verbatim, Mr. Mentz, I thought that I might address you directly here. We were given an extra credit assignment for this class, instructed to create 5 questions that we might want to ask you for your visit next week. While I may not know much about the Blue Humanities, there is something inherently interesting about them, something alluring that makes me want to learn more. So, my questions are:

  1. If there was a single word in the English Lexicon that you could change from terracentric to aquacentric, which word would you choose and why?
  2. Was there a particular piece of media that inspired you to pursue the Blue Humanities?
  3. What is an essential piece of media to consume when beginning the journey to understanding Blue Humanities? This can be fiction or fact, but it should be something that a person needs to spend time analyzing.
  4. What is your definitive edition of Moby Dick?
  5. What piece of media has done sincere harm to the Blue Humanities? How should one engage with this piece of media?

Thank you for taking the time to visit our class and impart on us wisdom regarding the Blue Humanities! I look forward to Tuesday, though I will have to miss the larger event due to a conflict in my schedule.

The New Yorker Hypes up Moby Dick

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Philip Hoare’s article, What “Moby Dick” Means to Me, is an excellent read that creates a sense of excitement and anticipation for reading Herman Melville’s epic. Beginning where many of us have been, Hoare takes us through the defeat and the disinterest young readers may experience when first attempting to read the experimental novel, beginning his article with “For years, “Moby-Dick” defeated me.” As he began to describe the sensation of watching the movie, of the building anticipation around his successful reading of the novel, it incited a curiosity within me.

Hoare, towards the tail end of the essay states, “Now, as I pick up “Moby-Dick” again, prompted by Philbrick’s provocative book, I’m reminded of a salutary notion: that the whales that inspired Melville were around long before us, and may, with luck, outlive us, too.” Exactly how large are these majestic, eternal creatures that spawned an entire industry and later the first American novel? According to Wikipedia, in Moby Dick Sperm Whales are said to get 90ft in length, with titular whale being the largest they had ever seen. Let’s guess that means it is around 100ft.

A school bus is roughly 35 feet long. This would put Moby Dick at 5ft shy of 3 school buses in length. If that’s hard to conceptualize – some of us have not been near a school bus for quite a few years – then consider the size of the average movie theater screen. They range from 45 to 65 ft in length. On the smaller side, that would mean that Moby Dick would roughly be 10ft longer than two movie theater screens. From that standpoint, this whale would certainly command the presence and obsession of any man.

Beyond the whale, as large as it is, there is the beautiful prose that the novel inspires from Hoare to consider. With lines in the article such as, “Few books are so filled with neologisms; it’s as if Melville were frustrated by language itself, and strove to burst out of its confines,” is it any wonder that this novel has inspired the imaginations and fear of the world over? I just picked up my hold on Philbrick’s Why Read Moby-Dick? from the San Diego Public Library system and I am incredibly excited to find even more reasons to look forward to this semester’s central story.

The Horror of the Essex

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Of the two readings that we were set to read this week, The True-Life Horror That Inspired ‘Moby Dick’ was significantly more enthralling to me. In particular, due to the nature of the tragedy and the timing of the event. As mentioned in the article by Gilbert King, the trouble began for the Essex in 1819 – 65 years before the first account of the criminalization of nautical cannibalism for survival in the court case R v Dudley and Stephens in 1884. Arguably, the Essex tragedy was significantly worse – with only 8 of the 20 man crew surviving vs. the 3 of the 4 man crew surviving, with the person who died having already been gravely ill due to drinking sea water. The crew of the Essex was also at sea significantly longer – 3 months as opposed to the 3 weeks of the Mignonette.

I had actually learned about the tragedy of the Mignonette through a podcast that I listen to from time to time – Lore by Aaron Mahnke – so I was not surprised with the cannibalism in the tale of the Essex, but the degree of the tragedy was not lost on me; the cruel irony of being forced to abandon their whaling ship due to a whale attack, the avoidance of the closer islands due to rumors of cannibalism only to succumb to it themselves, as well as Pollard having to eat his first cousin that he had promised to look out for, all of it was a horrible series of tragic errors. The fact that 8 people managed to survive at all was truly miraculous.

Reading about the truth behind the story has made me significantly more interested in reading Moby-Dick than I had already been. There are so many layers within the history of the narrative, alongside the narrative itself, that I’m really excited at the prospect of coming to class discussions looking like Charlie from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia when he had his Pepe Silvia conspiracy board.

[Edit: Fixed formatting, removed the HTML]

Stream of Consciousness Self Introduction by a Library Enthusiast

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Hello Everyone,

My name is Kit Jackson, pronouns She/They. I’m autistic, so I either keep too much eye contact or not enough and I can struggle sometimes with speaking. Your patience and understanding is always appreciated. I’m an English & Comparative Literature major, this is my third semester after transferring in. My future goal is to get my Master’s in Library Sciences, I’m taking ECL as my Bachelor’s because I love reading and writing. I have a wide variety of creative endeavors that I am a part of – I draw, sculpt, paint, act, etc. I’ve got a YouTube show that my wife and I have created, I can link it if anyone is interested. As a fair heads up, it is kind of a weird one. You’ve been warned.

My personal interests vary pretty heavily, which is partially because I have 4 older siblings that got me into media from before I was born. I really like foreign horror movies, video games, and comics. I’ve been getting into Manhwa more recently, as well as Webtoons, though I do read some Image & Dark Horse comics. Video games are something I’ve always been passionate about – some of my favorites being Kingdom Hearts, Dragon Age, .hack//, Final Fantasy VII, Claire Obscur: Expedition 33, Baldur’s Gate 3, and Unpacking. I definitely lean more towards fantasy over science fiction with the stories I consume, but I could never turn down a well written slice of life story.

This class really interests me, because I adore learning about the many different sources of inspiration for stories. I know that Moby Dick is a culturally significant book that has found its way into thousands of other pieces of media. Getting to learn more about those influences is a bit like being in on an inside joke – the more you know, the more you understand. That aside, I love to play Dungeons and Dragons, which is about as close to collaborative storytelling as you can get. This class having a collaborative emphasis sounds really interesting and right up my alley.

All this to say, I’m a massive nerd and I look forward to this class with you.

Take care!

Kit with their wife, Faeth, at the Dropout Improv Live event.