What is Dr. Isip thinking?
Research interests
My scholarly and pedagogical interests are wide-ranging. What follows are some areas that spark my interest as a professor and a researcher. I am not an expert in most of these fields, but I don't believe research is so much about claiming expertise as it is about seeking a deeper, more complex knowledge of any subject. Indeed, looking to Socrates' example, one shows much more wisdom in saying what he does not know than what he does (or thinks he does).
benjamin franklin & adam smith
secular saints
American Literature courses almost all begin with a question about what it means to be American or what sets American character apart from other types of national identities. For me, the Enlightment thinkers, Benjamin Franklin and Adam Smith - two figures strongly linked to Capitalism - offer a fascinating narrative about how Americans see ourselves and our position in the world. They offer me, as an educator and researcher, a chance to explore ideas of markets, game theory, and cultural narratives.
Like many others of their age, Franklin and Smith are also pushing against the hold and dominance of organized religion... while giving way to a sort of intellectual religious thought. This is one of my areas of recurring interest: how we continue to replace one dogma with another.Possible Courses:
ENGL 5306 - Amer Lit Pre-Civil War
ENGL 5308 - Native American, Indigenous Peoples, and Latinx Literature
ENGL 5312 - The Rhetoric of Capitalism
ENGL 5312 - American Theater
ENGL 6302 - Benjamin Franklin
ENGL 6302 - Brecht and Beckett
the rhetoric of cults
Literary Theory
Decolonial thinking suggests a stance against dominant thought. Sounds good, right? But what happens if you say this theoretical lens is not so different from Marxist, Feminist, Postmodern, Queer, or CRT lenses - all of them staking a claim outside of the mainstream, outside of the canon, all of them - at one point or another - the "decolonialism" of their times. That is, what one might call the "dominant" theoretical structure of their time.
Do we allow for such pushback? Do we allow critiques of items like Latinx from, well, those whom the term is meant to represent?
I love theory, and I love that students get excited about learning new theories. But I teach them with caution. I tell students that it is not uncommon for those taking an Introduction to Theory to leave each class a new convert to a new sort of cult. As with all new knowledge, those new to the game can be defensive and not allow for critique.
But that's not just those new to the game, is it? When was the last time you had a civil discussion with a student or friend about CRT or DEI?Possible Courses:
ENGL 5302 - Literary Theory
ENGL 5312 - The Rhetoric of the Academe
ENGL 5336 - New Historicism, Narratology, Psychogeography, and Metamodernism
ENGL 5337 - The Anxiety of Influence (Aristotle and Eliot)
ENGL 5374 - Gay Before Queer Lit
ENGL 5384 - Plato's Rhetoric
But Wait - there's more!
we need heroes
The Problem with...
latina/o/x
How exciting it is to introduce students to "canonical" Latinx Literature from Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, Jose Marti, Manuel Puig, Jorge Luis Borges, Ana Castillo, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Junot Diaz, and Sandra Cisneros.
To complicate things by adding in texts from Native writers like Leslie Marmon Silko, Sherman Alexie, Joy Harjo, Louise Erdrich, and Natalie Diaz.
Not to mention comics, pop culture, film... a lot!
But boy oh boy, there are lot of "problems" to get past before we can even get to the text? Right?
Like did you notice there were no accents on the names here? And why did I include "problematic" figures like Junot Diaz and Sherman Alexie? And shouldn't Native writings get their own separate courses?
I don't really disagree with any of this, but I think of Frederick Luis Aldama's critique of this acrobatics of thought in place of actual "work" in the world. I think of the difference between letting a student read a short story by Marquez for the first time and reading a 30-page deconstruction of that story. It is not to say that one is altogether "better" than the other, but to argue one will more likely stick with the student... and it is that which sticks that will go out into the world and change it.
self-help bros
suddenly aurelius
The current craze around Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, and other Stoics is fascinating to me. I've always been interested in self-help literature (c'mon, Franklin!), and this new iteration - with it's bro-flavor - has my attention.
major author
james baldwin
I'd love to teach a major author class on James Baldwin. I remember when nobody talked about him, even in classes dedicated to Black writers (I think it had something to do with his being gay, maybe). Then everyone seemed to love him. I certainly do. But there is always room for reconsideration, for complication, and I'd love to do this in my teaching and maybe in my research.
work and worth
louisa may alcott
Alcott had quite a bit to say about the demands of a Capitalist market. She, along with Fanny Fern, offer both scathing criticisms and fawning admiration for a system both seemed to master and be equally mastered by.
blame a woman
La Malinche
The narrative of Malintzin complicates the condescending view that, outside of Western and Colonizer influence, all was and is puppy dogs and rainbows in the Native and Latinx world.
I am especially interested in the "Eve" angle of La Malinche that, yet again, blames a woman for the total fall of man.
I have thought about how we continue to build up women just to bring them down (this came to mind with the Lizzo scandal).
american optimism
the disney version
Walt Disney is another "image of Capitalism" whom I believe to be much more complicated than he is given credit for. I also spent a decade working for Disney, much of that time writing about Walt Disney's life and philosophies. More than anything, I think Walt Disney the icon (rather than the man himself) represents a kind of America that probably never existed, but one that we seem to keep trying to find our way back to. If someone is chanting "Make America Great Again," I'd imagine "the Disney version" is what they might have in mind.
This narrative is intriguing because it tells us something about the power of our imaginations, that we can create places in our history that almost certainly never were.
Faucibus
Tempus
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