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NKU’s Six@Six: All about Moby Dick with Dr. Bob Wallace who has inspired generations of students


Few scholars know Moby-Dick as well as NKU’s Bob Wallace, who is active internationally in the Melville Society and who, closer to home, has inspired generations of students to discover the great novel’s depth and relevance.

Dr. Wallace will discuss his Melville scholarship and how he has taught the writer’s masterpiece by encouraging his students’ artistic interpretations of the novel.

Dr. Wallace’s students have interpreted Moby-Dick through various art forms – including in painting, sculpture, poetry or another media of their own choosing. Visual art by his NKU students has been exhibited in New York, Massachusetts, and Illinois in addition to the Greater Cincinnati area, and several student artworks will be on display on the evening of the lecture.

Dr. Wallace will be joined for this talk by current NKU student, Ony Uwolloh, a native of Nigeria. For her final project in Dr. Wallace’s class, she created haiku in the Pidgin English of her native country – a unique and creative example of how Dr. Wallace’s students have found ways to make Moby-Dick relevant to their own lives and to the 21st Century.

The two also will discuss interpretations of Benito Cereno, Meville’s story about an African slave revolt.

Join us for this co-presentation by Dr. Wallace and Ms. Uwolloh … and for a chance to gain new insights into a novel you thought you knew and how it remains important today.

Bob Wallace

This Six@Six presentation will take place on Thursday, January 24, from 6-7:30 p.m. at The Mercantile Library, 414 Walnut Street, 11th Floor, Cincinnati, Ohio

Special guest will be Matt Kish, the artist of Moby-Dick in Pictures, who has now illustrated Benito Cereno (samples of which will be on display).” His Moby-Dick book was the basis for Kish’s contribution to a 2016 exhibit at Cincinnati’s Contemporary Arts Center.

The cost is $6 for this lecture but it’s free for students and for a limited time (sign up today!) free for all attendees.

Get ticker here: Six@Six website

For questions, call the Scripps Howard Center for Civic Engagement at 859-572-1448.

The event is open to the public.

A special note: Herman Melville was no stranger to the Mercantile. He lectured there himself in 1858.


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