International
Melville Society
Conferences

Herman Melville (1819-1891) closely observed oceanic life and death from the decks of ships and found a “nervous lofty” language with which to engage its beauties and terrors. He has inspired many a reader to go to sea, imaginatively or otherwise. But how does one think about Melville’s Ocean in the 21st century? What has happened to the romance of the sea—to his “renegades and castaways,” the Handsome Sailor, or Pacific, Indigenous, African, or Lascar mariner? What has become of the “watery part of the world” that both separates and connects the continents?

In the Anthropocene, one might say that that romantic ship-narrative has sailed—into deserved oblivion. Mystic Seaport Museum did refit the Charles W. Morgan, built only seven months after and seven miles away from Melville’s Acushnet, and sent it on its 38th Voyage along New England’s coastline. The poetry of whaling had its place in this enterprise, but so did a clear understanding of the human impact on marine climate and environmental stability, human pressure on beings who live in or depend on the sea. Within a variety of contexts, then—ecocritical, aesthetic, ethical, sociopolitical, posthuman,—how do we read and return to Melville’s oceanic texts and themes?

We are delighted to announce that our keynote speakers will be Steve Mentz, Professor of English at St. John’s University, and Lenora Warren, Assistant Professor of Literatures in English at Cornell University. In addition to the regular panels and roundtables at UConn Avery Point, there will be a number of special events and a Melville-related field trip to Mystic Seaport Museum, including touring the 1841 whaleship Charles W. Morgan. We are also planning an optional post-conference day-trip to New Bedford, Massachusetts, on Friday, June 20, 2025, to tour the Whaling Museum and Seamen’s Bethel and walk on the very streets that Melville himself once trod.