3 courses with the subject HUMT, each shown exactly as we captured it from the college's catalog, with every element we hold. Where the wording looks broken, that is our reading of the catalog, not the college's text.
HUMT 270Melville & His World3
This course is an interdisciplinary introduction to the life, times, and works of American maritime writer Herman Melville (1819-1891). It focuses on his short adventure novels and through them: the nature of voyaging, labor and hierarchy, cultural difference and perception, and his lasting literary influence on American culture. Melville was a global citizen of his day, aware of, attuned to, and open to many perspectives. Becoming aware of the totality of Melville’s literary accomplishments will help midshipmen comprehend global thinking as central to the American maritime tradition. This is an elective course.
Moby-Dick may be the only single book a mariner really needs to read: this epic of American literature has been called “the greatest book of the sea ever written,” and “one of the strangest and most wonderful books in the world.” We will devote ourselves to reading this single novel, exploring the art, history, ethics, and philosophy of Herman Melville’s vision (and learning about whales in the process). At once a quest for revenge by the monomaniacal Captain Ahab and a story of his diverse crew on the Pequod, the book also offers a meditation on the meaning of life, good and evil, the existence of God, leadership, the nature of knowledge and perception, racial and cultural difference, labor, and the relationship between man and the natural world. We will focus on reading and discussion throughout, from focusing on tiny details of language, to embracing big concepts, to considering why Moby-Dick might matter to us today. As we read this novel that Philbrick calls “nothing less than the genetic code of America,” we will also explore its continued resonance in art and popular culture today. This is an elective course.
This course is an introduction to the Civil War & Reconstruction, examining the Union and Confederate war aims, campaign planning, and execution of operations. It considers the social, political, diplomatic, and strategic issues facing the North and the South. The class will focus on senior political and military leadership, as well as the development of theater strategy and subordinate campaigns. Topics of study will include proximate and underlying causes of the war, campaigns on land and sea, and the legacy of the Civil War and Reconstruction. This is an elective course.
