Williams-Mystic Names First Faculty Fellow

A new program allows Williams faculty to spend a semester at the Williams-Mystic Program in Mystic, Conn. Shawn Rosenheim, professor of English, is serving as the first resident faculty fellow.

At Mystic this semester, Rosenheim is participating in field seminars and contributing guest lectures and seminars. He is particularly interested in exploring the links between the town of Mystic, maritime studies and indigenous peoples. He is also creating a podcast that includes interviews with Mystic students and faculty to provide an in-depth look at the program. When he returns to Williams, he plans to incorporate aspects of the Mystic pedagogy into his own teaching.

A scholar of American Renaissance literature, Rosenheim has expertise in many of the works of maritime literature taught at Williams-Mystic, including Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. As a professor for the Summer Humanities and Social Sciences Program, he has taken students to Mystic for the past three summers to experience the museum’s interpretation of Melville’s world, discuss the influence of the coastal environment on American literature and visit the world’s last surviving wooden whaleship, the Charles W. Morgan.

The Williams-Mystic program offers an interdisciplinary curriculum focused on the sea. It is based at the Mystic Seaport museum. Students from Williams and many other colleges and universities spend an intensive, immersive semester taking courses, pursuing independent projects and participating in three extended field seminars.