Planetary Kin - Orion MagazineThis essay reexamines Herman Melville's Moby-Dick through the lens of science writing and maritime literature, drawing on Hester Blum's scholarship to explore how antebellum American sea narratives shaped understandings of frontier, empire, and humanity's relationship with the natural world. The piece connects 19th-century whaling literature to contemporary ecological and cosmic themes, using Star Trek's space whales as a framing device to bridge historical maritime imagination with modern environmental consciousness.bsky·Jul 2, 2026
