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On Tuesday we started by talking about the manga version of the Bible. Our conversation then turned to the question of whether or not we should publish our writing on the web. As a whole our class didn't fully agree when it came to answering this question. Some of us don't feel comfortable posting our work in public, while others felt that publishing on the web is an important way for us to grow as writers. However, we all agreed that our professors shouldn't make their first priority grading; rather they should strive to truly educate us. Then we questioned how Melville would answer this question. We came to the conclusion that he thinks life sucks anyway so we might as well post our writing on the web since we can’t protect ourselves from the terrifying world no matter what. Then we talked about the consciousness and the unconsciousness and discovered Ishmael and Ahab are foils for one another in terms of these. The difference between tragedy, what it seems to be, and satire, the entire meaning changes, also came up. Finally, we discussed the sudden change to drama in chapter 40 and what that means in terms of Melville’s style. Ultimately, it seems to demonstrate that the reader should not trust the narrator, no one is in control. 

On Thursday, Professor Grobstein came to talk to us about his paper on emergence and how that relates to genre. He introduced us to four types of stories: non-narrative foundational, narrative foundational, emergence, and anti-stories. Non-narrative foundational stories are not characteristic of modern western thought and have eternal order, or no time dimension. Narrative foundational stories have something to do with time and also have a foundation. They claim the past is the determinant of and hence best guide to the future. Emergence stories show that chance is good and life is an ongoing experiment in creation. Anti-stories show that life is all about chance and also pointless. Professor Grobstein then explained an example of emergence stories: biological evolution. Finally, we discussed whether Melville had an objection when writing Moby Dick and decided literature is unjustly collectively viewed as an anti-story.