Hester Blum
Penn State (University Park, PA 16802-1503)
FT-53749-05
Summer Stipends
Research Programs
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[Grant products][Media coverage][Prizes]
Totals:
$5,000 (approved)
$5,000 (awarded)
Grant period:
6/1/2005 – 7/31/2005
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The View from the Mast-Head: Antebellum American Sea Narratives and the Maritime Imagination
My book-in-process examines antebellum-era American sea narratives and their textual specificity about the conditions of life and labor at sea. Sailors’ narratives stress the value of experiential knowledge, and are the result of thought in tension with the materiality of labor. Maritime writing is invested in another kind of materiality as well: the materiality of the printed text. Sea narratives discuss how books are circulated, composed, and read at sea. In paying attention to the work of sailors in the worlds of sail and print, I examine specifically how sea narratives propose a method for aligning reflection with labor practice.
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