Tag Archives: Week 4

Unmoored, Vulnerable, Dispensable – Past & Present Converging as One

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                Reading the introduction to Moby-Dick made me considerably nervous – not dissimilar to the nervousness I experience watching movie trailers in the modern era. I do not long for synopsis, I do not strive to have my stories spoon fed to me in digestible segments shorn from the story like butchered meat before I ever get the opportunity to read it for myself. I want to dive into the ocean of language, into the thick of the chaos and make my peace with my ability to sink or swim along with the author’s current. The farther into the introduction I read, the more I found things that my brain will elect to latch on to thanks to Andrew DelBanco’s focus on them – such as the figure Bulkington that is due to appear in chapter three and then “recedes from view until twenty chapters later” (xvi). I do not wish to read about how “everything becomes unmoored, vulnerable, dispensable” (xviii). I wish to find myself adrift!

                When not exposing the story beats, speaking of important later moments well before the time we access them ourselves, there is much to dissect and carry with us as we venture into Moby-Dick. DelBanco’s belief that “Melville…extracted a human sample from a culture he both loved and abhorred, and he made of the Pequod a kind of Noah’s ark” is absolutely fascinating (xxi). Yet more amazing still is the knowledge that these human capsules are still reflective of figures in power today. It’s impossible to discern which is a more terrifying revelation: That time is inevitably cyclical, forever repeating the mistakes of the past with brighter clarity, or that the individuals in power frequently exhibit the same monomania of the doomed captain of the Pequod. Our ship continues to steer into darker, dangerous waters, my friends.

Blog Response – “A Poetics of Planetary Water” by Steve Mentz

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Steve Mentz constantly discusses the means of changing our relationship with the water in our environment. For centuries, the ocean and large bodies of water have been viewed as something to conquer, to possess, and something that can be transformed into a border or a place of recreation. This type of mindset revolves around issues of colonization, laying claim to or being placed in a position above something that cannot be “owned”. Melville refers to this as the “masterless ocean”, as Mentz references in his writing, something that humans “depend upon [it] and love [it], but it cannot be our home” (p. 4). It seems pointless to lay claim to something that is ever-changing and thus cannot be tamed. The ocean is something almost alien, especially considering that we know so little about it. To lay claim to the very thing that we cannot defeat or confine shows our complete lack of understanding of what the ocean truly stands for. Mentz urges us through the study of blue humanities to learn more about the ocean because “we are going to be seeing more of it, closer up, in the future” (p. 8) Not only in the rising sea levels of the unexplored ocean, but in the heavier rainstorms that risk flooding our neighborhoods with the ever-growing draught of our planet, we risk succumbing to the extremes of the water that we consider having rights over. The very thing we own, without proper knowledge or understanding of, will ultimately kill us all.

 My Reponse to Steve Mentz’s “A Poetics of Planetary Water: The Blue Humanities after John Gillis”

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When I first started to read this article by Mentz, I was a bit intimidated by it. But when I came across this line I believe I finally understood what he is trying to tell us about in this article: “We have come to know the sea,” he concludes,“as much through the humanities as through science.” Artistic, poetic, and humanistic knowledge, he insists, define the sea’s centrality to modern Western culture.” (pg. 144). There are so many ways that a vast number of people can learn about our oceans and what is within them and how they can help us as a society. As our oceans are so vast and cover most of the planet it has become a cental part of how we live our lives today.

Basic human knowledge as he says is part of how we know the sea, yes we can see it, touch it, smell it, and swim in it. But many don’t have acess to the ocean because of where they might live and they have heard of what the ocean looks like and might see pictures, a basic idea of the ocean. Those who might even do dives in the ocean and more, a lot of people can enjoy the ocean and what it can provide for us emotionally and even physically. People can also make art depicting the ocean and how others feel reguarding it which I enjoy seeing the most. The art works we looked at in class really spoke to me and I could see the story behind them and manty artists through their art styles can show how calm or even how violent the ocean might be. Reading about the ocean through poems is another way that Metz speaks of later and he does give examples of poems he enjoys which evokes the idea of blue humanities. So many poems have been written about the beach, the ocean and how one might feel regaurding it and this can help people gain a better knowledge of the ocean and what the ocean can mean for us.

As the ocean is so vast and everyone knows of it, it has become a source of where many countries recieve their food sources from and how much we use it, is very important for our modern world today.

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.