With the help of distinguished artist YOUCHAN, a big fan of Kurt Vonnegut who joined forces with me to co-edit A READERS GUIDE TO KURT VONNEGUT (Tokyo: Sairyusha Publishers, 2012), The Melville Society (in the US) and The Melville Society of Japan have just completed the CFP (Call for Papers) with a beautiful logo, which announces the 10th International Melville Conference to be held at Keio University, Tokyo, in the last weekend of June, 2015. Our special topic Melville in a Global Context very naturally induced us to commission YOUCHAN to paint original portraits not only of Melville but also of a couple of Ishmaels: Nakahama John Manjiro and Ranald MacDonald, who both contributed much to the construction of Modern Japan. While the formers transpacific voyage in 1841 coincided with Melvilles, the latters captivity narrative in Japan in 1848 led Melville to compose the second paragraph of Chapter 109 of MOBY-DICK (1851), ”Ahab and Starbuck in the Cabin:” “And so Starbuck found Ahab with a general chart of the oriental archipelagoes spread before him; and another separate one representing the long eastern coasts of the Japanese islands—Niphon, Matsmai, and Shikoke.” We hope this 2015 conference will provide us with a clue for reconsidering 3 MDs in a global context: the Monroe Doctrine, Manifest Destiny, and MOBY-DICK. melvillesociety.org
Posted on: Sun, 20 Apr 2014 18:50:27 +0000
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