Peter Coviello, chair of the English department, will lead a discussion of Herman Melville's "Benito Cereno" Wednesday as part of the Bowdoin Book Lecture series.
Coviello stated that he has been teaching the novella ever since he came to Bowdoin 14 years ago. He has featured the text in such courses as The American Renaissance and American Intimacies: Sex and Love in Nineteenth-Century Literature.
"It's a book that—once you've read it—you don't stop thinking about," he said.
First published as a serial in 1855, "Benito Cereno" recounts a historic slave rebellion that took place on a Spanish merchant ship in 1799.
"I'll be talking about it as one of the purest and fiercest expressions in the American literary canon of a certain kind of anger," Coviello said.
"Lots of people are very furious about lots of things," he added. "Very few turn them into such high artistry."
Coviello's talk will be held in Lancaster Lounge, Moulton Union on Wednesday from 7 to 8:30 p.m.
-Compiled by Peter Griesmer.