On August 14, 2026 NSS Fellow Steff Rocknak’s monumental tribute to Herman Melville was unveiled in New Bedford, MA.  Titled Melville and Jonah’s Journey, the 7-foot figure of author Herman Melville stands on 18-inch granite base. The bronze was commissioned by the City of New Bedford to honor Herman Melville and the city’s role in the creation of the novel, Moby-Dick.  According to Rocknak, “the sculpture draws on Father Mapple’s sermon on Jonah in Chapter 9 of Moby-Dick. Melville rises from swirling water surrounded by three whale ribs, suggesting both Jonah’s emergence from the whale and Melville’s own transformative experience at sea that would ultimately find expression in the writing of Moby-Dick. The three ribs also allude to the novel’s final three-day pursuit of the white whale and to Jonah’s three days and nights inside the whale.”

On hand for the unveiling were Robert K. Wallace, Melville scholar and founding member of the Melville Society Cultural Project; Mayor Jon Mitchell; and other local leaders integral in the project. The event  closed with a dramatic reading of Father Mapple’s sermon by actor Sam Waterston.