Specters of Melville:
Captain Nemo said, “okay”
Presenter: Charles Mikhail Zabala
Presenter Status: Graduate student
Academic Year: 19-20
Semester: Spring
Faculty Mentor: Kim Hester-Williams
Department: English
Funding Source/Sponsor: Other
Abstract:
| Edward Said in “Kim, The Pleasures of Imperialism” address superpowers and their hegemonic hold as, “pleasures of imperialism.” This critic of the imperial influences and loss of control in American history through historiography reve(a)ls and weaves into many of today’s contemporary hegemonic controls, in this thesis, I am interested in the porous structure of language, ambiguity in description, and subtly charged (de)humanization in Melville’s selected novels and short stories. This research will pull from an inter-/trans disciplinary research on contemporary Filipino seafarers well-being and contemporary issues facing life at sea as expendable workers and widen the scope in which Melville is read through post colonial reading by relating it to the growing industry of seafaring and stretch tentacular reaches gripping formerly separated and privatized borders of a modern Seafarers life in the 1860’s and into the modern day seafaring industry and growing tension due to piracy at sea. |