Touching This Leviathan asks how we might come to know the unknowable--in this case, whales, these animals so large yet so elusive, revealing just a sliver of back, a glimpse of a fluke, or, if you're lucky, a split-second breach before diving away. It's a pressing question, given how frequently whales are in the news: Japan just withdrew from the International Whaling Commission's ban on whaling; the Makah Tribe seeks to resume hunts; in 2019 there was a rash of dead gray whales along the west coast (some 200 of them); in 2018, an orca attracted international attention when she pushed her dead calf through the water 17 days before finally letting go. But other whale books sit in disciplinary silos: the history books, the science books, the literary books. There's no conversation between them, which is where Touching This Leviathan intervenes. Drawing upon biology, theology, local history, literary studies, environmental studies, and composition theory, Touching This Leviathan is necessarily interdisciplinary: literary nonfiction that gestures toward science and literary criticism as it invites readers into the belly of the whale.

About the Author
Peter Wayne Moe's Touching This Leviathan asks how someone might come to know the unknowable-in this case, whales. This is his first book, though he has also published over twenty essays on the teaching of writing. Moe is an assistant professor of English and oversees the writing program at Seattle Pacific University, where, in the summer of 2020, he led a project working alongside 130 volunteers to hang a whale skeleton in the school's science building.


Book Information
ISBN 9780870713071
Author Peter Wayne Moe
Format Paperback
Page Count 152
Imprint Oregon State University
Publisher Oregon State University
Weight(grams) 230g