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Paying Tribute to a Legendary Lindsey Wilson University English Professor

English professor Kendall Sewell honors the late Mark Dunphy by teaching 'Moby-Dick' with the text he used as a Lindsey Wilson student.

by Duane Bonifer

COLUMBIA, Ky. (11/26/2025) — When Lindsey Wilson University English professor Kendall Sewell teaches students about one of the great American novels, he channels a bit of one of the great Lindsey Wilson professors.

In Sewell's "American Literature I" survey class, students are introduced to the writings of Herman Melville, including his epic 1851 novel, Moby-Dick; or, The Whale.

One of texts Sewell uses to discuss what many consider to be the great American novel is an edition of Moby-Dick that Sewell used as a Lindsey Wilson undergraduate in an English class taught by the late Mark Dunphy.

"It feels connective back to that moment when I was a student and seeing Dunphy introduce us to Melville in his animated way," said Sewell, who graduated from Lindsey Wilson in 2013. "It feels like a small way of honoring Dunphy's legacy and his legendary commitment to teaching."

For Dunphy, who taught English at Lindsey Wilson from 1992 until his death in 2016, Moby-Dick was no ordinary great novel. In Dunphy's estimation, Moby-Dick was one of the greatest novels. He read it every year, sometimes every season, since he was a high school student in the 1960s in Connecticut.

"Dunphy teaching Melville was an example of what I wanted the college experience to be," said Sewell. "It was sitting with this brilliantly animated guy, and he would take you down the path of this amazing book published in 1851."

Sewell said that reading Moby-Dick with Dunphy was a formidable experience for many reasons.

"It's not just the things he said about the novel, but how he said it," said Sewell. "He got so much out of it. It was the first time I was convinced there is something to this book."

Because of Dunphy's approach to teaching Moby-Dick, Sewell said that several passages from the novel made an impression on him.

"I see lines that I understand because he pointed them out in class," he said.

Sewell involves his former professor in the class. He refers students to a 2008 interview about Moby-Dick that Dunphy recorded for the Lindsey Wilson YouTube channel, and he also has students read one of Dunphy's papers about Melville, "Herman Melville as 'Hip' Icon for the Beat Generation."

While it's important for students to appreciate Melville's literary genius and his exploration of identity in Moby-Dick, Sewell hopes that they will also discover the joy of reading the novel, just like he did when he studied it under Dunphy.

"What do I want students to get out of it? And that's enjoyment," said Sewell. "And that's what Dunphy wanted as well -- for us to enjoy it."

Lindsey Wilson University is a vibrant liberal arts university in Columbia, Kentucky. Founded in 1903 and affiliated with The United Methodist Church, the mission of Lindsey Wilson is to serve the educational needs of students by providing a living-learning environment within an atmosphere of active caring and Christian concern where every student, every day, learns and grows and feels like a real human being. Lindsey Wilson offers 28 undergraduate majors, five graduate programs and a doctoral program. The university's 29 intercollegiate varsity athletic teams have won more than 120 team and individual national championships.

Media Attachments

Lindsey Wilson University English professor Kendall Sewell discusses Herman Melville’s novel “Moby-Dick; or, The Whale” in a recent meeting of his “American Literature I” survey class in W.W. Slider Humanities Center. Sewell is holding a copy of the novel that he used when he was a Lindsey Wilson undergraduate student and studied Melville under the late Mark Dunphy.

A copy of Lindsey Wilson University English professor Kendall Sewell’s “Moby-Dick; or, The Whale” and a paper about Melville’s influence on the American Beat Generation writers published by the late Mark Dunphy are two of the resources Sewell uses to teach about the 1851 novel to students in his “American Literature I” survey class.

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