Chowder: Secretary's Report

Chowder Secretary’s Report A s your newly-elected Executive Secretary, I write to you for the first time. I sit at the window of my office on the Maritime Campus of the University of Connecticut looking over a gray ocean and thinking of warmer seasons when the sea sparkles wondrously—or of worse times when the waves pound the shore, and I remember my sea captain brother making his living in the midst of the winds and seas. Fisherman Linda Greenlaw writes in The Hungry Ocean (1999) that she never understood the weatherman’s statement, “The storm went safely out to sea,” and I, too, as the daughter and sister of sea captains have often wondered at that statement. The Melville world has seen its share of storms this past year, not least of which is the loss of our beloved Executive Secretary, Jill Barnum. But it has been a year of wondrous sparkling seas as well. The year 2006 began with President Gail Coffler’s engaging remarks on “Melville’s Allusions to Religion” (see Leviathan 8.1) at the New Bedford Whaling Museum. The Whaling Museum’s annual marathon reading of MobyDick on January 3–4 traditionally begins with the “Presidential Lecture.” Newly elected officers of The Melville Society include President Andrew Delbanco (Columbia University), Executive Secretary Mary K. Bercaw Edwards (University of Connecticut), MLA Program Chair Charlene Avallone (Independent Scholar), ALA Program Chair Elizabeth Renker (Ohio State University ), Murray Endowment Committee member Lyon Evans (Viterbo University ), Cohen Prize Committee member Ralph Savarese (Grinnell College), and Wendy Flory (Purdue University), appointed to serve on the Nominating Committee by outgoing president Gail Coffler. The American Literature Association convened May 25–28 in San Francisco, with the Society panel, chaired and moderated by Faith Barrett (Lawrence University), on Who Speaks in Melville’s Poems? Presenters were: Daniel Fineman (Occidental College), “Margins of Poetry: The Character of Character in Melville’s ‘The Temeraire,’”; Amy R. Nestor (SUNY, Buffalo), “History , Ruins, Voices: Reading Melville’s Clarel”; and Matthew Giordano (Villa C
2007 The Authors Journal compilation C
2007 The Melville Society and Blackwell Publishing Inc L E V I A T H A N A J O U R N A L O F M E L V I L L E S T U D I E S 101 C H O W D E R Maria College, Buffalo), “Melville’s Public Voice: The John Marr Monologues, James Whitcomb Riley, and the Question of Popularity.” Seven months later, on December 28, M. Thomas Inge (RandolphMacon College) chaired a wonderful panel at MLA entitled Melville in the Popular Imagination. Presenters were Tim Prchal (Oklahoma State University), “‘He’s Going to Sound’: Herman Melville and the Struggle to Legitimize Radio ”; Randy Laist (University of Connecticut), “The Presence of Moby-Dick in Heathers”; Craig J. Bernardini (Hostos Community College, CUNY), “Heavy Melville: Mastodon’s Leviathan and the Popular Image of Moby-Dick”; and Richard Hardack (Independent Scholar), “‘Or, the Whale’: Unpopular Melville in the Popular Imagination.” This was followed by a very short business meeting of the Melville Society and a lovely dinner. Much of the collective Melville Society consciousness is taken up with preparations for the sixth international Melville conference, Hearts of Darkness: Melville and Conrad in the Space of World Culture, to be held August 4–7, 2007, in Szczecin, Poland. The conference is co-chaired by Pawel Jedrzejko and Milton Reigelman. Hearts of Darkness is co-sponsored by the Conrad and Melville Societies. Szczecin was chosen as the site of the conference because, for the first time in the history of the event, the grand finale of “The Tall Ships’ Races” will take place there. The tall ships’ races will occur at the same time as the conference. In fact, the opening ceremony of the conference will be majestically held aboard the tall ship Dar Mlodziezy. Much excitement has ensued over this conference, and we hope to see as many Melvilleans as possible from around the world. The Melville Society Cultural Project continues to be very active. Four of the six original team members—Mary K. Bercaw Edwards, Wyn Kelley, Christopher Sten, and Robert K. Wallace—have been joined by Jennifer...