#  MSWG: Felix Lüttge 

 



####  calendar\_today Date and Time 

 **September 16, 2015** 

 12:00PM - 01:30PM EDT 

####  pin\_drop Location 

 **Science Center 252**  



 

 



 

**"The whalers' natural history and natural historians' whales"**

**Abstract:** The paper uses the iconoclasm of Herman Melville’s *Moby-Dick* as a point of departure to examine four types of images that deal with the problem of representing whales pictorially. I hope to show how the practical knowledge of whalers came to be inscribed in the work of natural historians, and that, although driven by allegedly ‘base’ (read: economic) motives, practical knowledge was essential to natural history. As will come apparent, Melville’s juxtaposition of theoretical and practical knowledge in literature runs parallel to a kind of scientific boundary work that lies at the core of the dichotomy of practical and theoretical knowledge.

[Please RSVP by filling out this form for copy of pre-circulated paper](http://projects.iq.harvard.edu/mswg/rsvp). Lunch will be served if you RSVP before Monday, Sep 14.



 

 



 

 

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