Emerging Genres 2008 - Web Paper 1

These are the first webpapers to emerge from Emerging Genres, a new course offered at Bryn Mawr College in Spring 2008. One month into the semester, students are writing here, most generally, about the human propensity to categorize; more specifically, about the literary categories we call "genres," and even more specifically about a particularly (prototypically novel?) object we've categorized as Herman Melville's novel Moby-Dick...

Take a look around, and feel warmly welcome to respond in the comment area available at the end of each paper. What strikes, intrigues, puzzles you...what, among your reactions, might be of interest or use to the writer, or others in the class, or others who--exploring the internet--might be in search of thoughtful conversation about how we are making sense of the way literature, and literary theory, portrays the world?