Science, Technology, and Moby Dick
We often think about Moby Dick as a description of American society as told through the microcosm of a whaleship. But Moby Dick is also a book about what knowledge is, what is knowable in the world, how humans relate to nature, and how scientific knowledge impacts society.
- Day:Saturday
- Times: 9:30am-12:30pm CST
- Dates: Starting March 28
Taught by:
About the Course
In this class, we will look at the science and technology behind Herman Melville’s classic 1861 novel, Moby Dick. We often think about Moby Dick as a description of American society as told through the microcosm of a whaleship. But Moby Dick is also a book about what knowledge is, what is knowable in the world, how humans relate to nature, and how scientific knowledge impacts society. From the very first pages of the book, Melville takes pains to let his readers know that he is up-to-date on all of the most cutting edge research of his time. In this class we will, of course, read all of Moby Dick over the course of nine weeks. We will also pair our weekly readings with contemporary accounts of, for instance, the anatomy, biology, and natural history of whales; the nature of nineteenth century industrial technologies, business, and economics; and the human and medical sciences as they existed before the twentieth century. Ultimately, this way of reading Moby Dick will both re-enchant one of the strangest and most marvelous texts in American literature, as well as giving us grist to reflect on our own uncertain times.
This class will satisfy one of the following curriculum requirements:
- Social Science Core
- Literary Studies Elective
- Tech and Society Elective
About the Professor
Michael Rossi
Michael Rossi is Associate Professor of the History of Medicine, the Conceptual and Historical Studies of Science, and the College at the University of Chicago. A historian of medicine and science in the United States from the nineteenth century to the present, his work focuses on the historical and cultural...
Michael Rossi is Associate Professor of the History of Medicine, the Conceptual and Historical Studies of Science, and the College at the University of Chicago. A historian of medicine and science in the United States from the nineteenth century to the present, his work focuses on the historical and cultural metaphysics of the body: how different people at different times understood questions of beauty, truth, falsehood, pain, pleasure, goodness, and reality vis-à-vis their corporeal selves and those of others.
His first book manuscript traces the origins of color science—the physiology, psychology, and physics of color—in the late-nineteenth-century United States to a series of questions about what modern America ought to be: about the scope of medical, scientific, and political authority over the sensing body; about the nature of aesthetic, physiological, and cultural development between individual and civilization; about the relationship between aesthetic harmony, physiological balance, and social order.
His second project looks at how linguists, anatomists, and speech pathologists moved, over the course of the twentieth century, from viewing language as a function of sound-producing organs (tongue, lips, palate, larynx, etc.) to searching for a notional “language organ” within the brains of all human beings. Such interpretative shifts in understanding human anatomy are neither an ancient phenomenon nor one limited to extreme medical specialization, but rather are ongoing issues, providing a window on the social, political, and philosophical understanding of modern bodies, medicine, and science.
Prior to Chicago, Michael was a postdoctoral fellow in the Groupe Histoire des sciences de l’homme at the Ecole Normale Superieur de Cachan in France. He received a PhD in the history and anthropology of science, technology, and society from MIT and an AB from Columbia University.