Herman Melville and the American Calling
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- ISBN 9780791475645
- Weight: 417g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 01 Jul 2009
- Publisher: State University of New York Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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Argues that Herman Melville's later work anticipates the resurgence of an American exceptionalist ethos underpinning the U.S.-led global "war on terror."
Oriented by the new Americanist perspective, this book constitutes a rereading of Herman Melville's most prominent fiction after Moby-Dick. In contrast to prior readings of this fiction, William V. Spanos's interpretation takes as its point of departure the theme of spectrality precipitated by the metaphor of orphanage-disaffiliation from the symbolic fatherland, on the one hand, and the myth of American exceptionalism on the other-that emerged as an abiding motif in Melville's creative imagination. This book voices an original argument about Melville's status as an "American" writer, and foregrounds Melville's remarkable anticipation and critique of the exceptionalism that continues to drive American policy in the post-9/11 era.
William V. Spanos is Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Binghamton University, State University of New York. He is the author of many books, including American Exceptionalism in the Age of Globalization: The Specter of Vietnam, also published by SUNY Press, and The Errant Art of Moby-Dick: The Canon, the Cold War, and the Struggle for American Studies.
