Gender and Transcendence: Sexing Melvilles Whale :: essays papers

Gender and Transcendence: Sexing Melville's Whale Mention Moby-Dick to most undergraduates and their response is either a yawn or a groan.Of course, few of them have actually read the novel; rather, their trepidation is usually based on hearing over and over again that it's a Great Book.If it's been a Great Book for over 150 years, they ask, what could it possibly teach us now, on the brink of the 21st Century? Such thinking seems to have created a rather large hole in what most undergraduates know about 19th century American literature--a hole large enough to swallow not only Melville's whale but all of R. W. Emerson and most of Emily Dickinson, as well.Without such foundational works, most undergraduates--even those interested in a serious study of American literature--miss out on a great deal in 20th Century American texts which builds on the philosophical themes present in those Great (Old) Books. For instance, Transcendentalism was one of the major intellectual centers to much 19th century American writing; and of course thousands of pages have been written about transcendentalism as a theme in Emerson and Dickinson, and an anti-theme in Melville.But most undergraduates are for the most part unaware of this deep vein of transcendentalism running through American thought and letters, and thus portions of modern prose and poetry that respond to it are largely unintelligible to them.If they've studied Emerson at all, it is as the high priest of American individualism, a sort of early American "self help" guru. On the other hand, most of today's undergraduates considergender criticism supremely relevant; many are even somewhat familiar with its terms and principles.Examining literary and cultural texts in terms of what they have to say about gender is a practice with which they are relatively familiar, and one about which they usually already have opinions.It is, in short, a vocabulary in which they are far more conversant than that of transcendentalism specifically and 19th Century American literature generally. As I began thinking about a class which might bring these two topics together, some questions immediately occurred to me: Are examinations of transcendence at all gendered?Is transcendence figured as possessing gender, requiring gender, confounding gender?If the new gender criticism seeks to go "beyond" the boundaries of our traditional concepts of gender and sexuality, then shouldn't one expect to find some connections with works which examine the very philosophy of going beyond common boundaries of self and other? Gender and Transcendence: Sexing Melville's Whale :: essays papers Gender and Transcendence: Sexing Melville's Whale Mention Moby-Dick to most undergraduates and their response is either a yawn or a groan.Of course, few of them have actually read the novel; rather, their trepidation is usually based on hearing over and over again that it's a Great Book.If it's been a Great Book for over 150 years, they ask, what could it possibly teach us now, on the brink of the 21st Century? Such thinking seems to have created a rather large hole in what most undergraduates know about 19th century American literature--a hole large enough to swallow not only Melville's whale but all of R. W. Emerson and most of Emily Dickinson, as well.Without such foundational works, most undergraduates--even those interested in a serious study of American literature--miss out on a great deal in 20th Century American texts which builds on the philosophical themes present in those Great (Old) Books. For instance, Transcendentalism was one of the major intellectual centers to much 19th century American writing; and of course thousands of pages have been written about transcendentalism as a theme in Emerson and Dickinson, and an anti-theme in Melville.But most undergraduates are for the most part unaware of this deep vein of transcendentalism running through American thought and letters, and thus portions of modern prose and poetry that respond to it are largely unintelligible to them.If they've studied Emerson at all, it is as the high priest of American individualism, a sort of early American "self help" guru. On the other hand, most of today's undergraduates considergender criticism supremely relevant; many are even somewhat familiar with its terms and principles.Examining literary and cultural texts in terms of what they have to say about gender is a practice with which they are relatively familiar, and one about which they usually already have opinions.It is, in short, a vocabulary in which they are far more conversant than that of transcendentalism specifically and 19th Century American literature generally. As I began thinking about a class which might bring these two topics together, some questions immediately occurred to me: Are examinations of transcendence at all gendered?Is transcendence figured as possessing gender, requiring gender, confounding gender?If the new gender criticism seeks to go "beyond" the boundaries of our traditional concepts of gender and sexuality, then shouldn't one expect to find some connections with works which examine the very philosophy of going beyond common boundaries of self and other?