Jill Barnum - Whole Oceans Away: Melville and the Pacific

LAUNCHING upon the deep of this volume, with its unshored, harborless immensities, would not have been possible without contributions from multiple sources. Our academic institutions head the list. At the General College, University of Minnesota, this project spanned the service of two deans, David Taylor and Terry Collins, and two Academic Affairs directors, Terry Collins and Dan Detzner, who generously provided a graduate research assistant, travel funding, secretarial assistance, and mailing. Our graduate research assistant Jill Flynn was indispensable in filing, assembling, editing, typing, and helping us brainstorm various stages of the project. The Literature Section of MIT and the Department of English and the Deans Office, Columbian College of Arts and Sciences at George Washington University, provided invaluable support for travel, permissions, supplies, and mailing. We were gratified by the enthusiastic acceptance of our book proposal by Joanna Hildebrand Craig, Editor-in-Chief at the Kent State University Press. She and her staff were quick to respond to every query and guided us expertly throughout the process.

We owe the birth of the project to Charlene Avallone and Carolyn Karcher, co-chairs of the fourth International Melville Society Conference, Melville and the Pacific, in Lahaina, Maui, where each of these essays first came to light. To Chip Hughes, mahalo for your support, cheer, and friendship. Pawel Jedrzejko and Timothy Marr helped us strategize the project in important ways in Lahaina. Jan Sten and Bryan Short worked on the spot to pull the conference papers together and to conceive of them collectively. Beyond Mauis shores, our Melville Society colleagues and friends Mary K. Bercaw Edwards, Elizabeth Schultz, and Robert K. Wallace provided inspiration, insight, and support in equal measure as we conceptualized the volume. Robert Del Tredici graciously allowed us to use his lambent artwork in the volume; he also took our group portrait for the dust jacket. From first to last, the emblazoned fraternity among the three editors made possible the energy, excitement, and joy that marked the entire enterprise.

Topmost thanks to our contributors, whose essays are the muscle and sinews of this volume. Warm appreciation to John Bryant and Charlene Avallone, who gave us important and timely advice along the way.

To our families and familiars, thank you for bathing us in eternal mildness of joy and for being our solid crescentic centre at all times: Benjamin and Nicholas Gidmark, Bob Del Tredici; Britt, Bayne, and Dale Peterson; Caroline, Elizabeth, and Jan Sten.