Hester Blum
@hesterblum.bsky.social
A patched professor in Queen Nature’s granite-founded College. Polar humanities, C19, oceanic studies. Ask me about Moby-Dick. I teach environmental and nineteenth-century American literature at WashU. Protect trans kids. She/her. hesterblum.com
Melvilleans and 19th-centuryists!!! My girl @hesterblum.bsky.social has a podcast coming out with @robdelaney.bsky.social about the best book of all time (side eye 😒 to Middlemarch Mafia) the ineffable oceanic spirituo-textual cry to heaven that is Moby Dick. exploringthegreats.com/moby-dick
Exploring Moby-Dick — A Herman Melville Podcast & Book Club
Join Professor Hester Blum and actor-writer Rob Delaney as they navigate Moby-Dick, the both devastating and hilarious journey of men at odds with the sea and themselves. Together they explore the cha...
exploringthegreats.com
1. @robdelaney.bsky.social is the best read and smartest person in Hollywood/London 2. The dizzying adrenaline of talking about Moby-Dick with him every day was amazing and I think is contagious if you subscribe to the podcast?!? 3. Our digressions are EPIC and rival Melville's 4. 🐳 4 life
Rob Delaney@robdelaney.bsky.social · 5d ago1. This was so fun to make I almost threw up every day. 2. This is the trailer on YouTube if that’s how you’ve chosen to live your life: youtu.be/IZYZaRWwYR4?... 3. I’d be super grateful to anyone who reposted the post above. 4. Have any Qs about it for me? I’ll endeavor to answer! 5. Get in!🚣🏾♀️
🐳 You’re God damned right @hesterblum.bsky.social & I made a TWENTY-FIVE EPISODE PODCAST just about 𝐌𝐎𝐁𝐘-𝐃𝐈𝐂𝐊. Subscribe now at exploringthegreats.com/moby-dick & enjoy our thrilling trailer:
1. @deadline.com with massive Hollywood bombshell for nerds here. 2. That’s @hesterblum.bsky.social on the left, not Tim Blake Nelson. 🐳📚❤️ deadline.com/2026/07/rob-...
Rob Delaney & Tim Blake Nelson Explore The Greats In Video Podcast
Rob Delaney, co-creator and star of Catastrophe, is a huge fan of Herman Melville’s Moby Dick.
deadline.com
Exploring Moby-Dick launches TOMORROW with me and my celebrity friend @robdelaney.bsky.social, who missed his calling as the greatest Melvillean of a generation! exploringthegreats.com/moby-dick
Exploring Moby-Dick — A Herman Melville Podcast & Book Club
Join Professor Hester Blum and actor-writer Rob Delaney as they navigate Moby-Dick, the both devastating and hilarious journey of men at odds with the sea and themselves. Together they explore the cha...
exploringthegreats.com
What is better than polar ephemera? Excellent article by @sarahmpicks.bsky.social
Sarah Pickman@sarahmpicks.bsky.social · last wk.Excited that my article on collecting polar exploration ephemera is live, part of the special issue “Crossings in Polar Art History” for the journal Art History. Thanks to issue editors @issygapp.bsky.social and Mark Cheetham and everyone who spoke to me for this piece, incl. @tchotchke.bsky.social!
Some Melville-adjacent reading I recommend for @leviathanbookstore.bsky.social, including: The Morgesons, by Elizabeth Stoddard (the Elena Ferrante of the 1860s). This is a sexier, weirder, US Jane Eyre and is the best 19th century novel you’ve never heard of. bookshop.org/lists/recomm...
Recommended Reading: Melville and Beyond
Check out this list on Bookshop
bookshop.org
Absolutely loving this new merch design from New Bedford Whaling Museum store.whalingmuseum.org/en-gb/produc...
This is probably my most important critical insight
Public Books @publicbooks.bsky.social · 2w agoIn “heated” (by 19th-century standards) letters, Herman Melville asked Nathaniel Hawthorne to “his cottage.” “Hawthorne seems to have pulled away,” writes @hesterblum.bsky.social, “in a Berkshires version of Heated Rivalry’s tuna meltdown in Boston.”
New at PB: @hesterblum.bsky.social has been reading and teaching “Moby-Dick” for 35 years. “Heated Rivalry,” she writes, fulfills what “Moby-Dick” imagines: the “dizzying possibilities for potentially liberatory worlds.”
“Heated Rivalry” Is the “Moby-Dick” of Canadian Gay Hockey Shows - Public Books
The literary genre of contemporary MM romance realizes an imagined world that Melville was trying to write into being.
publicbooks.org
Loved The Odyssey, and what is killing me (complimentary) is 1. the overlapping ship ribs design on the Horse rampant and 2. Elliot Page’s performance above all others
Here it is, my 285th #ScholarSunday thread of great public scholarly writing & work, podcast episodes, new & forthcoming books from the last week. Add more below, please share as widely as possible, & enjoy, all! 🗃️ + blackwhiteandread.com/scholarsunda...
#ScholarSunday Thread 285 (7/19/26) – Black and White and Read All Over
Here it is, my 285th #ScholarSunday thread of great public scholarly writing & work, podcast episodes, new & forthcoming books from the last week. Add more below, please share as widely as possible, &...
blackwhiteandread.com
It’s been super interesting to hear from HR fans who are surprised to hear how queer Moby-Dick is—tell peepol!!
Public Books @publicbooks.bsky.social · 3w ago“Shane and Ishmael are both ‘boring’ but their rabbit holing, pedantry, info-dumping, and hyperfocus encompass oceanic depths of feeling. … Both [Ilya and Queequeg] trouble their partners by smoking in bed. I could go on.”
“By one metric I am late to the genre of MM romance … By another metric, I’ve been immersed in it my entire adult reading life: For 35 years, I’ve been reading and rereading, writing and rewriting about, teaching and reteaching Herman Melville’s ‘Moby-Dick.’”
“Heated Rivalry” Is the “Moby-Dick” of Canadian Gay Hockey Shows - Public Books
The literary genre of contemporary MM romance realizes an imagined world that Melville was trying to write into being.
publicbooks.org
Celebrating Melville, dicking around, and the pleasures of reading Moby-Dick with new and old friends @leviathanbookstore.bsky.social: (Exploring Moby-Dick podcast cohosted by @robdelaney.bsky.social and me dropping sooooon.)
Leviathan Bookstore@leviathanbookstore.bsky.social · 3w agoThe most on-brand thing we've ever done. August 1st. Be there. @hesterblum.bsky.social @robdelaney.bsky.social leviathanbookstore.com/events/herma...
“The ‘grand’ ‘erections’ of Melville’s literary ambition, I suggest modestly, are in part instantiated in the imaginative architecture of Heated Rivalry’s cottage.” New at PB: @hesterblum.bsky.social on “Heated Rivalry” and “Moby-Dick.”
“Heated Rivalry” Is the “Moby-Dick” of Canadian Gay Hockey Shows - Public Books
The literary genre of contemporary MM romance realizes an imagined world that Melville was trying to write into being.
publicbooks.org
Loved reading this !
Hester Blum@hesterblum.bsky.social · 3w agoI 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...
Jacob Tierney as a creator of patriarchy kryptonite: brilliantly said
Halfbroke Horsewoman 🌻🏇🌻@tidypony.bsky.social · 3w agoSemi-retired HS English teacher who loves Melville here. I've been calling Heated Rivalry patriarchy kryptonite for months. Thank you for revealing the beating heart of the how and why.
3. Get ready to learn that in addition to his other talents @robdelaney.bsky.social may be the finest Melvillean of our time
Rob Delaney@robdelaney.bsky.social · 3w ago1. Read this wonderful & bananas piece about how Moby-Dick walked (and swam) so Heated Rivalry could run (and skate). 2. Buy & read Moby-Dick with an intro by Hester to prepare for our huge Moby-Dick announcement which arrives in mere weeks: global.oup.com/academic/pro... 🐳 ❤️👨🏼🤝👨🏿
This is the HEATED RIVALRY/ MOBY DICK crossover episode I didn’t know I was waiting for
Hester Blum@hesterblum.bsky.social · 3w agoI 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...
Glorious thread in response to a stunning set of reflections by @hesterblum.bsky.social on the hot, queer web of connections between "Heated Rivalry" and "Moby-Dick." Here, my friends, is the verve, the passion, and keen attention that demonstrates why CLOSE READING WILL NEVER DIE. Carry on!
Joseph Rezek@rezekjoe.bsky.social · 3w ago“HEATED RIVALRY IS THE MOBY-DICK OF CANADIAN GAY HOCKEY SHOWS”!!!! OMG!!! @hesterblum.bsky.social, ladies and gentlemen, in Public Books ⬇️⬇️⬇️
@hesterblum.bsky.social reads “Heated Rivalry”—created by Jacob Tierney / books by @rachelreidwrites.bsky.social—through the lens of “Moby-Dick.”: “What kills me about Heated Rivalry is how it makes me feel about the not [yet] here of Melville’s imaginaries.”
“Heated Rivalry” Is the “Moby-Dick” of Canadian Gay Hockey Shows - Public Books
The literary genre of contemporary MM romance realizes an imagined world that Melville was trying to write into being.
publicbooks.org
"Ishmael quietly took to the sea with Queequeg so that Shane and Ilya could shower together." ... from a wonderfully unexpected new essay by Moby-Dick scholar @hesterblum.bsky.social 🐋
Hester Blum@hesterblum.bsky.social · 3w agoI 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...
"By another metric, I’ve been immersed in MM romance my entire adult reading life: For 35 years, I’ve been reading and rereading, writing and rewriting about, teaching and reteaching Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick." I snort-laughed, this is the content the internet desires
Hester Blum@hesterblum.bsky.social · 3w agoI 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...
I 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...
“Heated Rivalry” Is the “Moby-Dick” of Canadian Gay Hockey Shows - Public Books
The literary genre of contemporary MM romance realizes an imagined world that Melville was trying to write into being.
publicbooks.org
Incredible series coming in October at Oregon State's PRAx on polar science and art: prax.oregonstate.edu/initiatives/...
Fall Theme: Polar Science, Polar Art | PRAx
prax.oregonstate.edu
Incredible series coming in October at Oregon State's PRAx on polar science and art: prax.oregonstate.edu/initiatives/...
Fall Theme: Polar Science, Polar Art | PRAx
prax.oregonstate.edu
