Born in Austin, raised in San Diego, I received my AB, MA, and PhD from the University of Chicago and recently retired from Hofstra University after thirty years of teaching. Author of Melville & Repose (Oxford), Melville Unfolding (Michigan), and The Fluid Text (Michigan) as well as editor of the Longman critical edition of Moby-Dick. Electronic editing includes Herman Melville’s Typee (UVa Rotunda) and the development of TextLab, a fluid text editing tool.