Category Archives: Announcements

Moby-Dick Lecture Series: ‘To be closest to the Creator’: Nuu-chah-nulth and Inuit whaling imagery in the collections of the World Museum, Liverpool.

Join us on Wednesday June 5th for a free public lecture by Dr Joanna Ostapkowicz of National Museums Liverpool entitled ‘To be closest to the Creator’: Nuu-chah-nulth and Inuit whaling imagery in the collections of the World Museum, Liverpool. This is the final lecture in what has been a diverse and remarkable series about whaling, the Arctic, and marine science. It takes place at 1pm on June 5th, in the 4th floor lecture theatre at the Merseyside Maritime Museum.

10% off in the Maritime Dining Rooms for guests attending the lectures.

Moby-Dick Lecture Series: Whales, fish & sponges: the scientific & social challenges of marine conservation.

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On May 22nd (1pm-2pm) Professor Chris Frid of the University of Liverpool will be giving a talk entitled “Whales, fish & sponges: the scientific & social challenges of marine conservation” at the 4th Floor Lecture Theatre in the Merseyside Maritime Museum. Like the others in this series this public lecture is free to all.

Professor Frid’s talk was to have been the last in the Moby Dick lecture series, but as it happens there is still one to go. Dr Joanna Ostapkowicz’s rescheduled talk entitled “‘To be closest to the Creator’: Nuu-chah-nulth and Inuit whaling imagery in the collections of the World Museum, Liverpool” will now take place at 1pm on Wednesday June 5th.

Thanks to Oxford World’s Classics

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I’m pleased to announce that Oxford World’s Classics have agreed to help out with the Moby-Dick marathon by providing copies of the novel we can use over the weekend. These will be available for readers and audience members so they can follow along with the reading over the weekend. They will also be very helpful for the timekeepers and other volunteers. The OWC edition includes a helpful introduction by Tony Tanner and extracts from Melville’s correspondence with his literary mentor, Nathaniel Hawthorne, in which they discuss many of the ideas Melville explores in his novel.

These books will be a great help to us over the weekend so the support of OWC is much appreciated.

Print Edition of Power Moby-Dick

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We are planning to publish an annotated edition of Moby-Dick to coincide with the marathon reading, and have launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund it. This is going to be a lovely, high-quality edition, in paperback and hardback, using the excellent Power Moby-Dick online annotated edition. Watch the video above then go over to Kickstarter to read more about the project and sign up for one of these lovely books. Details here: Annotated Moby-Dick at Kickstarter.

Moby-Dick on the Kathleen and May

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The Kathleen and May is a wooden three-masted topsail schooner built in 1900 and the last survivor of its kind. The ship spent its working life plying the Irish sea and the coasts of Ireland and Great Britain, and is now based in Liverpool. I am delighted to announce that the beginning and end of each day of our Moby-Dick marathon will take place on board. And here’s an odd little coincidence. From 1908 to 1931, the Kathleen and May was based in Youghal (pronounced Yawl) in County Cork, Ireland, the very town that features in the harbour scenes of John Huston’s film adaptation of Moby-Dick.

Do you have pictures of this beautiful old ship? If so, why not add them to the Kathleen and May group on Flickr?

Provisional Programme for Maritime Lectures

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In the weeks before and after the weekend of our marathon reading, there will be a series of accessible public lectures exploring Liverpool’s connection with Melville and Moby Dick, mythologies of whaling, whaling in Liverpool, and the whaling industry in Liverpool and the Northwest, and on whales and marine conservation. The programme is starting to shape up, so I thought I would share what we have so far:

Maritime Lectures 2013, Wednesdays 17, 24 April, 1, 8, 15, 22 May

At the Merseyside Maritime Museum, 4th floor lecture theatre, 1-2pm.

Provisional programme:

Dr Chris Routledge on Scoresby and Liverpool whaling, whaling and science etc. April 17 Date confirmed.
Gavin Hunter (archivist at Port Sunlight) on the Harris Whaling Station bought by Lord Leverhulme to supply his soap works with whale oil. April 24 Date confirmed.
Melville, Moby Dick and Liverpool– impact & about the book; Melville’s connection to Liverpool. May 1 To be confirmed.
Mythology of whales and whaling, Innuits/Canadian first nations. N West coast mythology. Objects in museum. May 8 To be confirmed.
Dr Bernard Stonehouse (Scott Polar Institute, University of Cambridge). Liverpool and the establishment of whaling fleets. May 15 Date confirmed.
Whale/Marine Conservation. May 22 To be confirmed.

Moby Dick on the Mersey

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Announcing Moby Dick on the Mersey, a marathon reading of Herman Melville’s epic novel taking place at the Merseyside Maritime Museum over three days, from the 4th to the 6th of May, 2013. The event is a collaboration between the museum and the University of Liverpool department of Continuing Education. We are going to need over 130 readers, so if you want to take part sign up for our email updates, and follow @merseymobydick on Twitter, so we can let you know how you can get involved.