“Call Me Ishmael” Melville Scholar Prof. Hershel Parker on Moby-Dick & Classic Literature

Share on Facebook
Share on Twitter
Share on
LinkedIn
+

This week on “The Learning Curve,” Gerard and guest co-host Kerry McDonald, senior education fellow with the Foundation for Economic Education, are joined by Hershel Parker, the H. Fletcher Brown professor emeritus at the University of Delaware and the definitive biographer of the 19th-century American novelist, Herman Melville. As we celebrate the anniversary this week of Melville’s birth, Prof. Parker shares what drew him to study the Moby-Dick author’s life, inspirations, and legacy. He discusses why Moby-Dick is often considered the greatest American novel, with its memorable characters such as Ishmael, Captain Ahab, Queequeg, and the diverse crew. He explores the influences of religion, poetry, and culture on Melville’s worldview and writing. Prof. Parker concludes by reading one of his favorite passages from Moby-Dick.

Stories of the Week: Harvard Professor Paul Peterson outlines seven ways that students lose out from being deprived of in-person learning during COVID-19. And, can we expect students to study, read, write, take tests, and submit school work using the same tool they use for playing video games, watching shows, and checking Instagram – or is that concern about technology unrealistic for our era?

Interview Guest:

Hershel Parker is the H. Fletcher Brown Professor Emeritus of the University of Delaware. With Harrison Hayford he co-edited the groundbreaking 1967 Norton Critical Edition of Moby-Dick. Fifty years later (2017), he did the Third Edition of Norton’s Moby-Dick. For the final two volumes of the Northwestern-Newberry Edition of The Writings of Herman Melville, he was the General Editor, succeeding Hayford. Parker’s Herman Melville: A Biography, 1819-1851 (1996), was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Both that volume and Herman Melville: A Biography, 1851-1891 (2002) won the top R. R. Hawkins award from the Association of American Publishers. Parker’s other books include, Flawed Texts and Verbal Icons (1984), Melville: The Making of the Poet (2008), and Melville Biography: An Inside Narrative (2012). On Melville’s bicentennial, 2019, he edited Herman Melville: Complete Poems for the Library of America. His current project, based on his own genealogical research, is Ornery People: Depression Okies and the Loss and Retrieval of Historical Memory.

The next episode will air on August 14th, 2020 with Jack McCarthy, President and CEO of AppleTree Institute for Education Innovation and AppleTree Early Learning Public Charter School.

Tweet of the Week:

News Links:

The Price Students Pay When Schools Are Closed – Paul Peterson

https://www.educationnext.org/price-students-pay-when-schools-are-closed/

 The Problem With Online Learning – Mark Bauerlein, RealClearEd/First Things

https://www.realcleareducation.com/2020/07/29/the_problem_with_online_learning_48862.html?utm_source=rced-today-auto&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=mailchimp-newsletter&mc_cid=4ae6e28767&mc_eid=d99b9842ca

Get Updates on Our Education Research

Related Posts

Brown Uni.’s Pulitzer-Winning Prof. Gordon Wood on American Independence & the Founding Fathers

/
This week on “The Learning Curve,” Cara and Gerard are joined by Gordon Wood, Alva O. Way University Professor and Professor of History Emeritus at Brown University and author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book, The Radicalism of the American Revolution.

Lead Plaintiff Kendra Espinoza & IJ’s Attorney Erica Smith on Landmark SCOTUS School Choice Decision

/
This week, in a special segment of “The Learning Curve,” Cara and Gerard are honored to be joined by Kendra Espinoza, lead plaintiff in the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case, just decided yesterday, Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, and Erica Smith, an attorney with the Institute for Justice, which represented the plaintiffs.

U-Arkansas Prof. Patrick Wolf on School Choice, Espinoza, & Students’ Civic Prep

/
U-Arkansas Prof. Patrick Wolf joins The Learning Curve to discuss school choice, the Supreme Court's Espinoza case, & students’ civic preparation.

Pulitzer Winner Diane McWhorter on Civil Rights History & Race in America

/
This week on “The Learning Curve,” Cara and Gerard mark the Juneteenth commemoration of the end of slavery with an episode devoted to Civil Rights history. They are joined by Diane McWhorter, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama: The Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution.

NYT Best-Selling Children’s Author Carole Boston Weatherford on Fannie Lou Hamer & Race in America

/
This week on “The Learning Curve,” Cara and Gerard are joined by Prof. Carole Boston Weatherford, a New York Times best-selling children’s book author, and Caldecott Honor Book and Coretta Scott King Award winning biographer of Harriet Tubman and Fannie Lou Hamer.

MA Commissioner Jeff Riley on Remote Learning, Voc-Techs, & Reforming Boston’s Schools

/
This week on “The Learning Curve,” Cara and Gerard open with commentary on the George Floyd tragedy and K-12 education’s role in addressing racial injustice. Then, they are joined by Jeffrey Riley, the Massachusetts Commissioner of Elementary and Secondary Education, to talk about the unprecedented challenges of COVID-19.

Acclaimed Poet & Former NEA Chairman Dana Gioia on Poetry & Arts Education

/
This week on “The Learning Curve,” Cara and Gerard are joined by Dana Gioia, a poet, writer, and the former Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, to talk about why the arts are so pivotal to the intellectual and civic development of America’s K-12 schoolchildren.

Homeschooling Expert Kerry McDonald on Harvard Law Professor Controversy & COVID

/
This week on “The Learning Curve,” Cara and Gerard are happy to be joined by Kerry McDonald, a homeschooling expert and Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Economic Education, on the major lessons we all should be learning from this educational moment, now that COVID has turned most of America’s 50 million schoolchildren and their families into "homeschoolers."

Kaya Henderson, Former Chancellor, D.C. Public Schools, on Leading Urban District Reform

/
This week on “The Learning Curve,” Cara and Gerard are happy to be joined by Kaya Henderson, the former chancellor of the District of Columbia Public Schools. They discuss the historic reforms Henderson oversaw, including increasing enrollment and improved test scores in an urban district that had been one of the lowest performing in the country.

UVA Law Professor Kimberly Robinson On Legal Debate About Education As Federal Right

/
This week on “The Learning Curve,” Cara and Gerard continue coverage of COVID-19’s impact on K-12 education, joined by Kimberly Robinson, Professor at the University of Virginia School of Law and the Curry School of Education, about her new book, "A Federal Right to Education: Fundamental Questions for Our Democracy," and the need for states to establish a “floor of opportunity” to ensure educational equity.