For more than a century readers have found Herman Melville's writing rich with philosophical ideas, yet there has been relatively little written about what, exactly, is philosophically significant about his work and why philosophers are so attracted to Melville in particular. This volume addresses this silence through a series of essays that: (1) examine various philosophical contexts for Melville's work, (2) take seriously Melville's writings as philosophy, and (3) consider how modern philosophers have used Melville and the implications of appropriating Melville for contemporary thought. Melville among the Philosophers is ultimately an intervention across literary studies and philosophy that carves new paths into the work of one of America's most celebrated authors, a man who continues to enchant and challenge readers well into the twenty-first century.

Edited by Corey McCall and Tom Nurmi - Afterword by Cornel West - Contributions by Troy Jollimore; Mark Anderson; Edward F. Mooney; Jason M. Wirth; Gary Shapiro; Tracy B. Strong; Marilyn Nissim-Sabat; Kris F. Sealey; Eduardo Mendieta and David LaRocca

Introduction: Melville's Silence
Corey McCall & Tom Nurmi
I. Melville as Philosopher
"In Voiceless Visagelessness": The Disenchanted Landscape of Clarel
Troy Jollimore
Platonic and Nietzschean Themes of Transformation in Moby-Dick
Mark Anderson
Passion, Reverie, Disaster, Joy: What Philosophers Learn at Sea
Edward F. Mooney
Outlandish Lands: Melville's Pierre and the Democratic Ambiguity of Space and Time
Jason M. Wirth
Beasts, Sovereigns, Pirates: Melville's "Enchanted Isles" Beyond the Picturesque
Gary Shapiro
On Religion and the Strangeness of Speech: Typee as a 'Peep'
Tracy B. Strong
II. Inheriting Melville
Melville's Phenomenology of Gender: Critical Reflections on C.L.R. James' Mariners, Renegades, Castaways and Paget Henry's Caliban's Reason
Marilyn Nissim-Sabat
Decolonial Options in Moby-Dick
Kris Sealey
"Benito Cereno," or, the American Chronotope of Slavery
Eduardo Mendieta
The European Authorization of American Literature and Philosophy: After Cavell, Reading Bartleby with Deleuze, then Rancière
David LaRocca
Afterword: A Time to Break the Philosophic Silencing of Melville
Cornel West