[Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick (1851): Fascism, Totalitarianism, Now

In 1941, amid the rise of fascism, F. O. Matthiessen read Moby-Dick as a struggle between a demagogic leader who represses otherness and seeks total destruction, and a narrator who defends to democratic openness, plurality, and survival. By the 1990s, critics understood the novel as addressing totalitarian threats to democracy from within. In 2026, how does Melville’s text speak to readers confronting the mainstreaming of extreme rhetoric – and repressive measures against immigrants, women, and LGBTQ+ communities? What does Captain Ahab reveal about insecure masculinity, the fetishization of militarized power, and the desire for visibility? Join a group of students from different backgrounds to discuss selected passages.

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