Meet your hosts

• Hester Blum

  Professor of English, Washington University in St. Louis

  Hester is the Lynne Cooper Harvey Distinguished Professor of English and Professor of Environmental Studies at Washington University in St. Louis. She is the editor of the Oxford World's Classics edition of Moby-Dick and the author of The View from the Masthead: Maritime Imagination and Antebellum American Sea Narratives and The News at the Ends of the Earth: The Print Culture of Polar Exploration, among other volumes. Blum is past president of the Herman Melville Society, and her honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship. She participated in the 38th Voyage of the Charles W. Morgan, the world’s last surviving wooden whaleship and the sister ship to the Acushnet, in which Melville sailed.

• Rob Delaney

  Actor, writer, and comedian

  Rob is an award-nominated American actor, writer, comedian, and author. He co-created and co-starred in the critically acclaimed Channel 4 and Amazon Prime comedy Catastrophe, which aired for four seasons in over 130 countries. He and his co-creator, Sharon Horgan, were nominated for a Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series. Rob also earned an Emmy nomination for his role opposite Michelle Williams in the FX original series Dying For Sex. Other recent credits include Black Mirror, Deadpool & Wolverine, Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One, Bad Monkey, Agrylle and Deadpool 2. He has also written two memoirs. His second book, “A Heart That Works”, was both a New York Times Bestseller and a Sunday Times Bestseller.