Coming into this class, I had never read Moby-Dick before, so I wasn’t sure what to expect beyond the usual reputation of it being a dense “great American novel.” What surprised me most, and what I ended up enjoying the most, was how clearly the book connects to ideas from the Blue Humanities. Learning to read the novel through that lens opened it up in a way I never anticipated. The ocean in Moby-Dick isn’t just a setting or a backdrop for adventure; it becomes a force that shapes identity, culture, knowledge, and even the limits of human perception. The Blue Humanities perspective helped me see how Melville uses the sea to destabilize the boundaries we often draw between humans and the natural world. The crew of the Pequod becomes a drifting microcosm of global life, and the ocean becomes a kind of archive—vast, unstable, and endlessly interpretable. That idea reshaped how I understood the novel’s structure, its digressions, and even Ahab’s obsession. Instead of reading the book as a straightforward hunt for a whale, I began to see it as a meditation on how humans try, and often fail, to impose meaning on a world that is larger and more fluid than we are.

I have never experienced a class like this until this one. Dissecting a novel the entire semester, the ins and outs, the ups and downs, and everything in between, made me feel both challenged and inspired. This class is one of the few that have taught me something I didn’t know about myself, and that’s a win in itself—taught me to ask questions, research and allow myself to go deep in thought and enjoy the silence of just being bored and looking forward to having Professor Pressman next semester and applying all that I have taken away to that. Honestly, I just took the class so I can see what fall/ early spring fashions she will bring to next semester.
Looking forward to presenting this final project when I stop procrastinating and dive deep one last time. 

I learned how to communicate ideas clearly and think more critically in this class. I also discovered new strategies for organizing my work, and expressing my thoughts with confidence. These skills helped me grow as a writer, and a learner as well. My final takeaway is that effective communication can make any project stronger, and more meaningful. To be honest about what I am writing here through this simple blog, that the most interesting part of my learning in the class was when you usually used to divide us into groups because when you did that to our class, it makes us more active, and as students used to share and learn from each others finally, I want to thank you as my professor for spending a lot of your time guiding and teaching us what was necessary for us to earn and understand the novel.