Melville and the Mediterranean

Old City Jerusalem June 17-21 2009

Sponsor List

This international conference is devoted to understanding the place of the Mediterranean and the“Holy Land” in Western consciousnesses. Using Melville’s epic Clarel: A Poem and Pilgrimage in the Holy Land as one focus, the conference aims to open up discussions related to travel, literature, other humanities and the sciences, aesthetics, anthropology, archaeology, ethnography, and religion.

Conference Program (pdf)

Call for Papers (pdf)

Conference Registration

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Keynote Speakers

Thomas L. Thompson, Professor of Old Testament at the University of Copenhagen. His books include The Bible in History: How Writers Create a Past; The Mythic Past: Biblical Archeology and the Myth of Israel; The Messiah Myth: The Near Eastern Roots of Jesus and David; The Early History of the Israelite People, and The Historicity of the Patriarchal Narratives: The Quest for the Historical Abraham.

Amy Kaplan, Professor of English and American Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Her books include The Anarchy of Empire in the Making of U.S. Culture, Cultures of U. S. Imperialism, and The Social Construction of American Realism.