Bryant is a professor in the Department of English at Hofstra University and is a Melville scholar currently working on a biography of the man entitled Herman Melville: A Half-Known Life. He is also the Founding Editor of Leviathan: A Journal of Melville Studies (1990-2013). Bryant took the opportunity aboard the Charles W. Morgan to gain perspective on Melville’s experiences aboard the Acushnet, a whaler of the same vintage as the Morgan, and will use his new viewpoint to revise things he has already written and gain insight into upcoming chapters.