The Prosthetic Arts of Moby-Dick
Seiten
2025
Oxford University Press Inc (Verlag)
978-0-19-778051-0 (ISBN)
Oxford University Press Inc (Verlag)
978-0-19-778051-0 (ISBN)
The Prosthetic Arts of Moby-Dick offers the first book-length study of how disability shapes one of the world's most iconic novels. Rather than see Ahab's lost limb as a deficiency, it explores the way that his prosthesis becomes both a means to power and a key figure for understanding the role that Islamic cultures plays in the novel's plot and form.
The Prosthetic Arts of Moby-Dick offers the first book-length study of how physical disability shapes one of the world's most iconic novels. For generations, readers have viewed Captain Ahab's whalebone leg as a symbol of what he lacks, the limb he lost while fighting the white whale off the coast of Japan. David Haven Blake considers that ivory leg in a historical, medical, and geo-political context. Drawing on extensive archival research, he situates Ahab's prosthesis at the center of the novel's reflections on wounding, embodiment, and the role that Islamic cultures play in American narratives of revenge.
Melville had a lifelong fascination with dismemberment. From the use of assistive devices to the phenomenon of phantom limbs, he keenly imagined the experience of disability on ship.Blake connects the novel's interest in prostheses with its use of Islamic imagery to characterize overwhelming power. In this radically new analysis, he identifies the character Fedallah as the captain's most important prosthesis in piloting the captain to his final battle with Moby Dick. A key to understanding both Ahab and Ishmael, Fedallah emerges as the crutch upon which this novel of dismemberment leans.
Engagingly written and spanning each stage of Melville's career, The Prosthetic Arts of Moby-Dick is an eye-opening meditation on democracy, aggrievement, and the challenges of living in a global age.
The Prosthetic Arts of Moby-Dick offers the first book-length study of how physical disability shapes one of the world's most iconic novels. For generations, readers have viewed Captain Ahab's whalebone leg as a symbol of what he lacks, the limb he lost while fighting the white whale off the coast of Japan. David Haven Blake considers that ivory leg in a historical, medical, and geo-political context. Drawing on extensive archival research, he situates Ahab's prosthesis at the center of the novel's reflections on wounding, embodiment, and the role that Islamic cultures play in American narratives of revenge.
Melville had a lifelong fascination with dismemberment. From the use of assistive devices to the phenomenon of phantom limbs, he keenly imagined the experience of disability on ship.Blake connects the novel's interest in prostheses with its use of Islamic imagery to characterize overwhelming power. In this radically new analysis, he identifies the character Fedallah as the captain's most important prosthesis in piloting the captain to his final battle with Moby Dick. A key to understanding both Ahab and Ishmael, Fedallah emerges as the crutch upon which this novel of dismemberment leans.
Engagingly written and spanning each stage of Melville's career, The Prosthetic Arts of Moby-Dick is an eye-opening meditation on democracy, aggrievement, and the challenges of living in a global age.
David Haven Blake is Professor of English at The College of New Jersey. He is the author of Walt Whitman and the Culture of American Celebrity and Liking Ike: Eisenhower, Advertising, and the Rise of Celebrity Politics, winner of the 2017 PROSE Award for the year's best book in Media & Cultural Studies.
Acknowledgements
Introduction
PART ONE: STAGING DISABILITY
Chapter 1: Ahab, Walking
Chapter 2: Bone to Bone
PART TWO: PROSTHETIC IDENTITIES
Chapter 3: The Phantom Fedallah
Chapter 4: Ishmael, Salaaming
PART THREE: BODIES POLITIC
Chapter 5: The Unnatural Stump
Chapter 6: Eternal Hacking
Conclusion
Notes
Index
| Erscheinungsdatum | 22.11.2024 |
|---|---|
| Verlagsort | New York |
| Sprache | englisch |
| Maße | 165 x 239 mm |
| Gewicht | 481 g |
| Themenwelt | Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Anglistik / Amerikanistik |
| Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Literaturgeschichte | |
| Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Literaturwissenschaft | |
| ISBN-10 | 0-19-778051-2 / 0197780512 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-0-19-778051-0 / 9780197780510 |
| Zustand | Neuware |
| Informationen gemäß Produktsicherheitsverordnung (GPSR) | |
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Buch | Hardcover (2023)
De Gruyter (Verlag)
CHF 83,90
