All Astir...

Keep an eye on the Whaling Museum website, YouTube channel, and Facebook page during this shelter-in-place period! The museum staff are busy making their collection available on the Web, often with expert interpretation.

 

A Virtual MDM

Beginning Friday, April 17, at 5 P.M. Eastern, the museum will make available a one-hour video segment from a recent Moby Dick Marathon. The closing chapters will be read by folks currently in "lockdown" at home.

Tours of the Collection

The Museum from Home series is an ever-expanding set of resources for students and parents.

• Check out the "Educator Website" video series.
• Go behind-the-scenes with the "Collections Show & Tell" series.
• Search the museum's entire trove of objects and photographs. Scrimshaw knuckle-duster anyone?

The current exhibition of Dutch maritime paintings, De Wind is Op!, is now behind closed doors, but a wealth of material is available online:

• The entire (4.5 hour) opening symposium.
• A tour of the works, with commentary by Chief Curator, Christina Connett Brophy.
• The complete exhibition catalog(!). Grab a copy while you can.

If you have wandered the museum during the Marathon's "Graveyard Shift" and browsed the items in Turner Gallery (where we used to read Cetology), you'll want to watch these videos guided by Akeia de Barros Gomes, Curator of Social History; and Michael Dyer, Curator of Maritime History.

Speaking of Maritime Museums

The Mystic Seaport Museum offers its share of digital treasures, including a cool "Behind the Scenes" series.

 

 Other Avenues

• Explore the Melville Society website, particularly the set of blogs by MDM pillar Robert K. Wallace.
• Get lost in the Melville Electronic Library and Melville's Marginalia.
• Search through Melville's papers at Harvard's Houghton Library, like his letter to Hawthorne dated Aug. 13, 1852. (Zoom in and try to decipher his scrawl.)

Whaling Museum closed through March 27

The Whaling Museum just announced that it will close immediately due to "the growing concerns related to the coronavirus."

The Museum plans to remain shuttered to the public through March 27, 2020. Consult the Museum's website for updates.

Think of the fevers, yellow and bilious! Beware of the horrible plague!
- Chapter 71

...a time to hunker down with a good book.

Salute to James Russell

James Russell, who served as the President and CEO of the NBWM for nine years, has left to head the Nantucket Whaling Museum.
On his watch, both Stump the Scholars and Chat with Melville Scholars (my two favorite parts of any MDM) were added to the marathon.
My abiding memory of Mr. Russell comes from MDM20. At about 6 A.M. that Sunday he slipped into the back of the gallery, and quietly set about gathering abandoned coffee cups and water bottles, the night's jetsam. His dedication to the museum, the MDM, and us marathoners was that real.
Thanks for some great MDMs and good voyage to you, Mr. Russell!

Melville Scholars Workshop, June 7!

In case you missed the notice, it's not too late to register for an afternoon/evening full of Melville at the New Bedford Whaling Museum. This workshop looks to be a great event—a mini-MDM, without all that reading.

The Melville Society Cultural Project will lead the workshop, followed by themed museum tours, and a lecture (with reception) on Tuesday, June 7, beginning at 1 PM.

We can expect to see most of the panelists from the MDM's "Stump the Scholars" and "Chat with a Melville Scholar." Looking forward to it!