Nate Wolff @natewolff.bsky.social · 02/10/20266-8 sperm whales to hate would be a real headache for your classic monomaniac 😞 2131
Nate Wolff @natewolff.bsky.social · 02/10/2026sperm whale clicks finally decoded: “…every… billionaire… is ….a …policy …failure…” 0107
Reposted by Nate WolffJoe Pretty Scary, Kids! Phelan 🎃 @jpinnv.bsky.social · 16/09/2026One unexpected encounter in the first chapter of THE GOLDEN BOWL was Poe's ARTHUR GORDEN PYM, and it's the dazzling whiteness bit that is remembered. I'm glad I had read @natewolff.bsky.social & @rezekjoe.bsky.social 's version of Poe. 082
Nate Wolff @natewolff.bsky.social · 12/09/2026I figured the original post was probably a sports thing but that’s none of my business. 030
Nate Wolff @natewolff.bsky.social · 30/07/2026Cool! and congrats on the book! (Estoy estudiando español ahora y, por supuesto, practico frases importantes como "el capitán de barco odia ese pez blanco") 140
Nate Wolff @natewolff.bsky.social · 15/07/2026Honestly given the importance of "the sea" and "only one bed at the inn!" I think we can safely say that Melville invented "the trope" trope. 1120
Reposted by Nate WolffHester Blum @hesterblum.bsky.social · 15/07/2026I wish I could tell you that I have consumed any other culture/thought about anything else in six months but I haven’t, and here’s a little bit about why. Thanks to @publicbooks.bsky.social and anyone who has allowed me to talk at them about HR and MD: www.publicbooks.org/heated-rival...publicbooks.org“Heated Rivalry” Is the “Moby-Dick” of Canadian Gay Hockey Shows - Public BooksThe literary genre of contemporary MM romance realizes an imagined world that Melville was trying to write into being. 1916543
Nate Wolff @natewolff.bsky.social · 16/06/2026Soldiers of Fortune? I haven’t read it! Looks like there is or was a good broadview edition. Depending on what relative inflection/emphasis of gilded age and romance and empire keywords you need CT Yankee is not much shorter but teaches ok since it’s bonkers. 110
Reposted by Nate Wolffmartha shearer @marthashearer.bsky.social · 15/06/2026okay but what if a 10-year-old thinks moby dick is better than middlemarch, what then. where are they supposed to go 501913402
Nate Wolff @natewolff.bsky.social · 10/06/2026Seen it? I've lived it!* *read about it. in the bible. and Moby-Dick. 020
Nate Wolff @natewolff.bsky.social · 06/06/2026That's not really a Chotiner-style question because it would put the subject on guard, and it bakes in an arguable generalization (if you say this one person is untrustworthy then you think all women are liars) and so would open Chotiner to the kind of trap he's so good at setting for others. 110
Nate Wolff @natewolff.bsky.social · 28/05/2026As soon as “jazz spurts” popped into my head I knew I had to inflict it on others. 160
Nate Wolff @natewolff.bsky.social · 17/05/2026Look, Middlemarch is a great novel. It complexly mediates class conflict, the commodification of all life, emerging ideological structures in Victorian capitalism. I just personally think it’s more impressive when a novel does that through a story about a guy who hates a weird fish. 919925
Reposted by Nate WolffJoseph Rezek @rezekjoe.bsky.social · 17/05/2026I do believe this guardian debacle is about me. I think they personally want to upset a bunch of Moby-Dick micro-influencers. They have no idea what’s coming do they @natewolff.bsky.social !!! 3496
Nate Wolff @natewolff.bsky.social · 15/05/2026so sad that Big Dentist now makes you have “credentials” if you simply want to improve your oratory 😞 010
Nate Wolff @natewolff.bsky.social · 13/05/2026media.tenor.coma woman says i don 't know her on a tv showALT: a woman says i don 't know her on a tv show 140
Nate Wolff @natewolff.bsky.social · 13/05/2026I'm sorry, no. "Transparency" is simply not an indefiniteness that shadows forth the heartless voids & immensities of the universe, stabbing us from behind with the thought of annihilation; a dumb blankness, full of meaning, from which we shrink. 4459
Nate Wolff @natewolff.bsky.social · 10/05/2026I actually own a weird card game based on a Frank Norris novel but you know TEETH is the McTeague game of my dreams. 2120
Nate Wolff @natewolff.bsky.social · 07/05/2026Canvas is down, ye say? Aye lad hearken to me and I'll tell thee of a time when a man might say canvas was down! When the leviathan booms his bulk upon ye an' thy splintered masts surrender their sails to the foaming, merciless drink!! then, lad, ye say might say with some authority that can (1/135) 825962
Nate Wolff @natewolff.bsky.social · 04/05/2026yeah this is tough. Surely there's a "I'd strike the sun" riff. But if I may get serious for a moment, with recent right to work laws it is sadly much harder to get fish to strike. 250
Reposted by Nate WolffJoseph Rezek @rezekjoe.bsky.social · 04/05/2026You can’t let @natewolff.bsky.social play Legos with your kids for TEN MINUTES without him making a bunch of angry fish!!! 1183
Reposted by Nate WolffCaleb Smith @c-also.bsky.social · 03/05/2026Coming soon! I wrote the Foreword to the new edition of Lauren Berlant’s first book, The Anatomy of National Fantasy. Dig the killer new cover design, where Liberty is in a scaffold that looks a lot like a cage. 1407
Nate Wolff @natewolff.bsky.social · 02/05/2026this is considered business casual at the Melville studies conference 140
Nate Wolff @natewolff.bsky.social · 30/04/2026this joke doesn’t totally make sense but my first thought was “cabinet of dr. calamari” 0140
Nate Wolff @natewolff.bsky.social · 08/04/2026I have to respect this excuse for missing a day in my video game theory class. 2311
Reposted by Nate WolffNate Wolff @natewolff.bsky.social · 31/03/2024Jesus’s 3 days in the tomb and his resurrection was typologically prefigured by Jonah’s 3 days in and escape from the belly of a whale, so Easter is a great day to meditate on the inscrutable malice of a specific fish. 518937
Nate Wolff @natewolff.bsky.social · 01/04/2026me when I’m reading Herman Melville’s uplifting novel The Confidence-Man 081
Nate Wolff @natewolff.bsky.social · 01/04/2026FYI today's a great day to start reading this novel. It begins on April 1st — and it's widely considered Melville's most accessible and fun work after Clarel! 4336
Nate Wolff @natewolff.bsky.social · 26/03/2026Oh wow, verrrryyy interesting that no one told me best ever tooth novel McTeague was facing Mediocremarch in this Defector bracket. Vote suppression from the Big Eliot lobby. Sad! 3121
Nate Wolff @natewolff.bsky.social · 25/03/2026Hey! Is the dream of the 90s (sustained ambitious attention to the fin de siècle American novel) alive? Yes! In this AzQ special issue @rafaelwalker.bsky.social and I co-edited with intro by us & afterword by Jennifer Fleissner 😎 Open access! @hopkinspress.bsky.social muse.jhu.edu/issue/56582 03211
Reposted by Nate WolffRafael Walker @rafaelwalker.bsky.social · 18/03/2026Our special issue of Arizona Quarterly on the American novel at the turn of the 20th century is now out! In addition to an intro by @natewolff.bsky.social and me, it includes 6 original essays and a bracing afterword by Jennifer Fleissner (which, among other things, urges us back to Lears). 1267
Nate Wolff @natewolff.bsky.social · 10/03/2026Yeah you can go outside if you creep and smooch there 150
Nate Wolff @natewolff.bsky.social · 10/03/2026My god. I’m putting “no class outside because of pus caterpillar” on the syllabus 160
Nate Wolff @natewolff.bsky.social · 10/03/2026“Can we have class outside” no absolutely not. we are discussing The Yellow Wallpaper under sickly fluorescent lights and please do not open or look out the window. 913610
Nate Wolff @natewolff.bsky.social · 21/02/2026I am entirely guessing, but I think their thought was maybe that S&T series is pitching classic authors to the book club crowd: nice covers, appealing format, conversational afterwords. The Poe-Longfellow war is a fun glimpse into 19th-c marketplace as messy in ways that mirror current author spats? 120
Reposted by Nate WolffAnna Kornbluh @annakornbluh.bsky.social · 21/02/2026literary+cultural studies friends working in grad programs! does your program offer a required introductory seminar for new students? teaching ours again, eager for suggestions of themes, readings +assignments for theory foundations+cohort-cohering. (some past versions in thread below in return) 114417
Nate Wolff @natewolff.bsky.social · 18/02/2026I'm ok with this as long as she honors von Stroheim's vision (makes it 9+ hours long) 050
Nate Wolff @natewolff.bsky.social · 14/02/2026everything reminds me of him (McTeague from MCTEAGUE [1899]) 0193
Nate Wolff @natewolff.bsky.social · 13/02/2026American literature was doomed. It could not rival British fiction's evocation of deep history and rich social milieu. And then Hawthorne had a stunning realization that would change US fiction forever: The Puritans were weird, they were utopians, and they were horny. 150
Reposted by Nate WolffDan Sinykin @dan-sinnamon.bsky.social · 10/02/2026It's here! I hosted a symposium on close reading at Emory in November. Matt Seybold recorded it for his podcast, American Vandal, and the first of three episodes is out today. Catch me, @johannawinant.bsky.social, @becimay.bsky.social, @bakaari.bsky.social + more podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/c...podcasts.apple.comClose Reading For The 21st Century Symposium (Vandal Live at Emory)Podcast Episode · The American Vandal · S12 E4 · 1 sec 05722
Nate Wolff @natewolff.bsky.social · 09/02/2026I have been quite pleased with his sous vide recipes for ribs and brisket: www.seriouseats.com/sous-vide-po...seriouseats.comSous Vide Barbecue Pork Ribs RecipeA sous vide barbecue pork ribs recipe that achieves the goals of traditional smoking—crusty bark and tender yet meaty texture—without the BBQ tools. 010
Nate Wolff @natewolff.bsky.social · 08/02/2026that’s right sports fans it’s time to fire up my famous “game day” sous vide ribs! They will be ready in ~36h 2140
