Celebrating New Horizons in Literature and Learning: Ralph James Savarese’s Latest Works

The College celebrates the publication of two new books this semester by Ralph James Savarese, professor of English: Herman Melville and Neurodiversity, Or Why Hunt Difference with Harpoons? and Never Make Them Cry: Classrooms & Coffins. 

Herman Melville and Neurodiversity, Or Why Hunt Difference with Harpoons? is a scholarly monograph from Bloomsbury coauthored by Savarese and Pilar Martinez Benedi, assistant professor of American literature at the University of L’Aquila, Italy. The work comes out of a series on Explorations in Science and Literature with a particular focus on how Melville’s work rejects the “pathology paradigm” often situated in conversations on (dis)ability. This book is Open Access, through the generous support of the Dean’s Office and Burling Library.  

Savarese says, “Herman Melville didn’t need the concept of neurodiversity because diagnostic categories hadn’t yet congealed in the mid-19th century. Instead, he could explore neurological difference in a way that was open to the wonder of it.” Never Make Them Cry: Classrooms & Coffins from Ice Cube Press is a collection of poems on the art and act of teaching. Savarese dedicated this collection to the memory of his close friend, Johanna Meehan, professor emerita of philosophy, who passed away on January 8, 2024.  

Savarese says that Never Make Them Cry reflects his careeer as a student and teacher. “I spent 39 years in a classroom as a teacher, 23 of them at Grinnell, and many before that as a student. Each day was a kind of launching into the great unknown. In a kind of verse memoir, I track the many joys and sorrows, including losing beloved students and colleagues.” 

Savarese is the author of three books of prose and four books of poetry. He is also the coeditor of four collections. He has taught courses in American literature, creative writing, disability studies, and neurohumanities at Grinnell College.