Year of Award
2025
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Type
Master of Arts (MA)
Degree Name
English (Literature)
Other Degree Name/Area of Focus
Ecocriticism
Department or School/College
English
Committee Chair
Dr. Louise Economides
Committee Co-chair
Dr. Katie Kane
Commitee Members
Dr. Brady Harrison, Dr. Soazig Lebihan
Keywords
Moby-Dick, Ecological Activism, Ecological Grief, Eco-melancholia, Queer Theory, Affect Theory
Subject Categories
American Literature | Classical Literature and Philology | Comparative Literature | Ethics and Political Philosophy | European History | History of Gender | Indigenous Studies | Literature in English, North America | Modern Literature | Other Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies | Queer Studies | United States History
Abstract
Moby-Dick: Or, The Whale is a classic of American literature, spanning multiple genres and remaining culturally relevant nearly 175 years after its original publication. Though on the surface Moby-Dick reads as an adventure story of a man who experiences the whaling industry firsthand, Herman Melville’s text continues to invite new generations of readership through the framework of the twenty-first century climate crisis.
In this thesis, I position Moby-Dick as a text that can be used to understand our modern society’s current dispositions of ecological grief. My thesis operates at the intersection of three main literary critical theories: ecocriticism, affect, and queer. In the introduction chapter, I examine Ishmael as a modern American individual, driven by the mythical notion of American individualism on the frontier – the ocean, in this case – and identify Moby-Dick as an epic on grief. In the first chapter, I examine the “cruel optimism” of engaging with the American Dream and the plights of capitalism upon Ishmael, the other whalemen, and nature. I also identify two Ishmaels within the text: the past Ishmael, an ecological mourner, who experiences the whaling industry on the Pequod and the present Ishmael, an eco-melancholic, who writes the epic sometime after the Pequod has sunk. In the second chapter I argue that the present Ishmael suffers from melancholia, derived from both his ecological and queer losses, and examine multiple conditions under the “ecological grief umbrella” – namely, ecological elegy, politicized melancholy, the affective disposition of Anthropocene Horror, ecological mourning, and eco-melancholia.
I then propose my own handbook for how modern individuals can engage with these dispositions in conceptualizing new forms of ecological activism, specifically activist actions that go beyond the physical. My activist “gestures,” which can also be understood as “suggestions,” engage with a daily practice of world-making, of imagining and moving toward queered utopian horizons of possibility concerning climate change activism. Though Moby-Dick is a romantic adventure of American grandeur, this text can be recognized as a prophetic work of ecological activism as we continue to move through and imagine new ways to address the climate crisis.
Recommended Citation
Schini, Katie Ann, ""A CHANGED UNDERSTANDING OF OUR PRESENT": MOBY-DICK AS PROPHETIC ECOLOGICAL ACTIVISM" (2025). Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers. 12507.
https://scholarworks.umt.edu/etd/12507
Included in
American Literature Commons, Classical Literature and Philology Commons, Comparative Literature Commons, Ethics and Political Philosophy Commons, European History Commons, History of Gender Commons, Indigenous Studies Commons, Literature in English, North America Commons, Modern Literature Commons, Other Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons, Queer Studies Commons, United States History Commons
© Copyright 2025 Katie Ann Schini