Why Melville Matters Now: A Trans-Disciplinary Symposium on Herman Mel
ville, Albany, NY
=20
Keynote Speaker: Andrew Delbanco
=20
This celebratory symposium to be held November 17 and 18th 2006 at the =20
Albany Academy
campus and its environs where Melville lived and attended school from=20
1830-31, will
consider the enduring relevance of the author=E2=80=99s life, work, and inf=
luence=20
from the
perspectives of the humanities, arts, the sciences, and new technologies.=20
Herman Melville=E2=80=99s
work lives on to =E2=80=9Cto tell the tale,=E2=80=9D because the questions=20=
he posed are the=20
same issues
that inspire contemporary writers, artists, and thinkers today=E2=80=94the=20=
vexed=20
relations
between humans and their environment, racial and social injustices, capitol=
 =20
punishment,
psychological alienation, and the new frontiers of science and globalism.

The symposium, sponsored by the Albany Academies in conjunction with The=20
Center for
Humanities, Arts, and Sciences (CHATS), State University of New York at=20
Albany, will bring
together scholars, artists, actors, historians, archivists to present paper=
s=20
and panels. In
addition, there will be artistic performances and installations, archival=20
and gallery exhibits,
and a 24-hour marathon reading of Moby Dick. Readers will include visiting=20
writers at local
cultural institutions, celebrities, community members, local university=20
faculty and students and the Academies=E2=80=99 alums, faculty and students=
. Participants=20
will be able to take a self-guided tour of Melville=E2=80=99s Albany connec=
tions, a=20
route that includes Lansingburgh, Pittsfield and Arrowhead, and the origina=
l=20
Albany Academy building, where Melville attended school, and to attend=20
special art exhibits based on Melville-inspired works.=20

Melville=E2=80=99s texts and what might be called their transdisciplinary a=
pproach=20
to existence
anticipate their own critical future and our own times in multiple ways.=20
These works lend
themselves to contemporary critical/theoretical discourses as well as=20
interdisciplinary
approaches and adaptations. The following topic areas are not meant to be=20
prescriptive but
rather suggestive of possible papers:

=E2=80=A2 Melville, travel, and world citizenship
=E2=80=A2 Melville and environmentalism, ecology
=E2=80=A2 Melville the ultimate eco-tourist
=E2=80=A2 Melville and morality, ethics
=E2=80=A2 Melville and cosmopolitanism
=E2=80=A2 Melville and Pedagogy: teaching Melville today
=E2=80=A2 Gender and queer studies: approaches to
Melville=E2=80=99s short fiction
=E2=80=A2 The question of the animal, animality
=E2=80=A2 Blackness and whiteness, racial and social
issues in Melville=E2=80=99s fiction
=E2=80=A2 Postcolonialism, cross-culturalism
=E2=80=A2 Biological and ecological issues in
Melville narratology
=E2=80=A2 Freudian, Lacanian readings
=E2=80=A2 Melville and questions of agency
class, and power relations
=E2=80=A2 Adaptations
=E2=80=A2 Music
=E2=80=A2 Melville and Science, cetology
and herpetology
=E2=80=A2 Digital studies, media, and Melville
=20

Questions, paper and panel proposals and abstracts should be sent to=20
_MelvilleNow_at_yahoo.com_ (mailto:MelvilleNow_at_yahoo.com) .
=20
=20
Additional Information: _www.albany-academy.org/melville_ (h
ttp://www.albany-academy.org/melville)=20

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Received on Mon May 08 2006 - 08:43:11 EDT