Moby Dick as a Guide to Understanding Digital Form, Content, and Curation

The traditional study of great literature is indeed a valid way to understand our world, including the digital world. This semester our class has analyzed and critiqued the classic Moby Dick through a traditional literary lens. One way we have explored the text is through looking at its form. Is Moby Dick a novel, an epic, a treatise about whaling? Melville's work takes on many tones in different chapters. In the beginning, the story is a first person narrative told by Ishmael. Later, in the chapters about whaling and cetology, the story is an information guide to species of whales, to their anatomy, to the art of whaling itself.

The way Melville uses form to convey content and meaning is very helpful in navigating the digital world. Digital culture comprises a list of ever-expanding genres, from remixes to mashups, from videos to gifs, from blogging to online scholarship. Through examining Melville's use of Moby Dick as a multi-genred work, we can understand how important form is when conveying content. We can shape our own writing and content better by choosing a form that best conveys the message we want to send. This makes us better analysts and better creators, allowing us to contribute more meaningfully to discussions in the academic world and in the digital world.

Another application of Moby Dick to digital culture and of literature to digital culture in general is how the elements of Moby Dick are organized or curated. All novels are a curation of an author's thoughts, ideas, or experiences. Moby Dick is a curation of several themes, ideas, and as mentioned genres. Curation is now becoming something of substance in its own right. But as we can see through Moby Dick and through other works of literature and texts including histories, dictionaries, novels, etc., curation is an old art form. The students in the course have a better understanding of curation as an art form and as a practical way to organize and analyze information because of their critique of Moby Dick. 

The following links are examples of how students have used their study of Moby Dick to create content and curate information, showing just how valuable traditional literary study can be in understanding digital culture.

Moby Dick and Metadata
Pop Song Remix Needs a Music Video
The Parts of Whale in Moby Dick