Crawford, T. Hugh “Networking the (Non) Human: Moby-Dick, Mathew Fontaine Maury, and Bruno Latour” Configurations 5.1 (1997) 1-21.

“In a novel that primarily concerns the actions and passions of humans (authors, critics, characters), nonhumans continue to assert themselves as central to the functioning of the ship and the act of reading” (2).

“In other words, the actant in the network includes nonhumans as well as humans. Generally these actants by themselves have little power; however, "no actant is so weak that it cannot enlist another. Then the two join together and become one for a third actant, which they can therefore move more easily. An eddy is formed, and it grows by becoming many others." 7 This notion is, in some ways, a restatement of Ishmael's assessment of Ahab's strategies, but it is important to note that Latour insists on a symmetrical analysis that never reduces a situation to the merely social or technological” (3).

“These essences--reality and actants--even though they remain human or nonhuman, are not stable. They are neither simple substantives in a sentence nor characters in a novel, but are instead events as trajectories in a network of socio-technical relations” (3).

“it also describes in some detail the difficulty involved in producing such a network--the need to enlist nonhuman allies 13 as well as a broad range of human actants. In other
words, it is a textbook example of actor-network theory” (4).

“Latour explains this element of actor-network theory in "A Relativistic Account of Einstein's Relativity," where he argues that Einstein "state[s] that an effect of reality is built in by the superimposition of reports sent from at least two frames of reference
to a third one." Taking his cue from the subject of his essay (Einstein's short book Relativity: The Special and General Theory), Latour makes clear that these multiple points of view are not just different perspectives. Rather, the delegates must send back reports that can, given the proper transformations, be superimposed at a “centre of calculation" 15 in order to produce a form of reality (to trace the trajectory of an actant). In Latourian terms, Maury's problem was to find a way to somehow [bring] home these events, places and people” (6).

“Of course, as Latour argues (and Maury's text demonstrates), the universal laws of meteorological science exist on a local level and become "universal" only through the extension of the network” (8).

“Even given the possibility of such standardization, Maury's network still requires fidelity, "those upon whose co-operation the successful prosecution of the scheme must rely." The lesson to be learned from this text is the fragility of these networks that produce reality” (8).

“Melville's often murky text invites attention to the language used to capture the events and characters being depicted, and he even (in proper Latourian fashion) turns the reader's attention to inscriptions produced by nonhumans” (15).

“The point then becomes, not whether the things are "really" there or whether they are adequately represented, but rather what state of affairs (a socio-technical set of practices) exists or can be produced to know and use the things that both predate and are produced by a particular network” (15).

“The point here is simple. Without doubt, the gap between words and things is unbridgeable. Scholars--philosophers, literary and cultural critics--can circle the question endlessly” (16).

“Melville invites that binarism, but his text focuses instead on the various forms of mediation between those poles, which is where all the action is. As Latour says in We Have Never Been Modern, "The two extremes, local and global [substitute Man and Nature], are much less interesting than the intermediary arrangements that we are calling networks" (18).

“As a character in the novel, Ahab is locked in what Latour calls the world of the ‘modern constitution.’ For him, the answer to his quest is to be had by an idealistic/realistic encounter with a specific object. He symbolically and (in part) literally strips himself of socio-technical apparatuses and raises the whale. He famously tosses his pipe aside and smashes his quadrant--but, it must be remembered, he still uses his logbooks, charts, chronometer, line and log, and compass. And, of course, he must continue to rely on the fidelity of his crew and the (relative) durability of his ship” (18).

“Latour's position requires a new definition of humanism, one that traditional intellectuals may view with dismay: Modern humanists are reductionists because they seek to attribute action to a small number of powers, leaving the rest of the world with nothing but mute forces. It is true that by redistributing the action among all these mediators, we lose the reduced form of humanity, but we gain another form, which has to be called irreducible. The human is in the delegation itself, in the pass, in the sending, in the continuous exchange of forms. . . . Humanism can maintain itself only by sharing itself with all these mandatees. Human nature is the set of its delegates and its representatives, its figures and its messengers” (20).

“In other words, in a Latourian humanism there is room for purposive human actions, as long as one grants the nonhuman the capability of purposive action (an obviously constrained definition of purposive is operable here)” (21).