Join us for this exciting lecture on November 17th, 2021 at 4:30pm via Zoom
Branka Arsić is Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University
Beginning with Melville's remarks left in his Encantadas concerning the Galapagos tortoises this lecture examines the scientific and historical archives to which he had recourse, from Cuvier and Broderip to Porter and Delano. On that basis it seek to reconstruct exactly what, in the early 19th century, prompted scientists, doctors, and naturalists, as well as traders and ordinary seamen, to obsess about the tortoise as a life form, one that was brought to the brink of extinction by the middle of the century.