Dr. Elizabeth Briande Bishop could be described in appearance as eclectic. She is in her 30’s (one of the younger professors I’ve seen on campus), her hair is usually dyed a different color depending on the month (right now it is blue), she has three eyebrow piercings, and during our interview, wore large zombie hand earrings with a matching necklace. Her office, on the third floor of Poucher, is decorated just as electrically, with books and posters everywhere one turns, along with the small knick-knacks reminiscent of her time in New Orleans, such as crystals, gemstones, dice, and tiny figurines, among other treasures. I used to sit outside this office nearly every day in the Fall 2019 and Spring 2020 semesters before the pandemic, doing work and watching her come and go, sometimes with her dog, Sophie, or a pile of books on a cart rolling behind her. In a way, I originally got to know Dr. Bishop through her office. I had been fascinated by her for a long time, wondering how such an interesting person would conduct a class. This semester, I was finally able to get into her English 351 course, American Poetry since 1945, and it has been even more enlightening than I could have imagined.
Dr. Bishop is as far removed from the stereotype of a college professor as I can think of, and for some, there may be a temptation not to take her seriously. This would be a mistake. She is scaldingly intelligent and honest, both in my conversations with her and in her teaching style. Not burning, but rather, like a hot shower, cleansing you in the water and steam and delivering you anew once you step back onto the cool bathroom tiles. The precision to which she delivers her thoughts about her life, literature, and the current state of the world sometimes leaves me speechless with so much to think about. In all honesty, the way she talks reminds me of myself, and for once I understand why some people seem so baffled with my ability to be unforgivingly truthful without realizing it.
Though her specialty is in Romantic Poetry, Dr. Bishop teaches a wide variety of courses from Children’s Literature (ENG 385) to History & Development of the English Language (ENG 374). I find so much about her to respect, though Dr. Bishop herself notes the ways in academia which her own self-perception has not always aligned with the view I seem to have of her, “I definitely suffer from imposter syndrome. Not all women have it, but it seems like the women who have it feel it very intensely. I felt like I didn’t belong in graduate school. I knew I wasn’t dumber than anyone else but I felt like that was what other people felt.” I know Dr. Bishop’s sentiment is one I feel myself. Women, traditionally, have had to fight for a spot at the academic table. Today, the English & Creative Writing program at SUNY Oswego blossoms with the talent of women, both professors and students, but the larger scope of historical sexism that still radiates in academically led spaces can still trip women up. As Professor and Chair Leigh Wilson will tell me in her interview, the current gender makeup of the department is mostly due to the women in the department (and the country at large) gradually lobbying for more access.
Dr. Bishop is originally from a Calvinist Christian family in Oswego County and grew up on a farm. Getting her undergraduate degree in English from SUNY Oswego, she then moved to Emory University for her PhD As a local in the community, her knowledge is invaluable to understanding the dynamics present at SUNY Oswego in the lives of students. Often in class, she tells us to call or email her if we ever need anything, including going so far as to give us advice, a ride, and encouraging us to vote. She makes a point to talk about being a welcoming and helpful presence to students of color coming to the area for school who may have whiplash at the cultural and physical landscape present. Alienation, both imagined and real, for a student in higher education is an experience she has lived through, and one she actively tries to fight against. One way she does this is by reaching out to students and directly fostering that mentorial relationship; another is by recognizing and discussing the importance of her own as an undergraduate.
In her dissertation, “‘In the midst of Life, we are in Death:” Melancholia and Ecology in British Romantic Poetry”, she specifically points out the connection between herself and Dr. Bennet Schaber, “I was delivered into the hands of Emory’s faculty by an equally important figure, my adviser at the State University of New York at Oswego—Bennet Schaber. Simultaneously a witness and a guide in all things holy and profane, tragic and banal, he challenged me to truly embrace literature as transformative presence in my life, which truly “obliterates all consideration” on the way to Beauty and Truth, long before I understood who Keats was, or what that idea meant.”
Dr. Schaber still currently teaches cinema courses today in the English department, and I am familiar with him through some of my friends who are Cinema & Screen Studies majors. This statement about his impact on her life is so touching and powerful I can’t help but ask Dr. Bishop about why she wrote it. She seems amused that I even gave time to reading her dissertation, but does give me a thoughtful answer (as is her usual fashion). Dr. Bishop notes the fact that most English majors don’t go on to pursue PhDs in the subject, instead moving into K-12 education, journalism, or other areas. She credits Dr. Schaber with not only putting literary criticism and theory in her place, but making it feel possible for her to pursue English seriously to get her doctorate at Emory, “Depending on the types of Professors you run into or the type of colleges you go to, you think English is just reading books and interpreting poetry, and it is, but it’s also a way of looking at the world, and people who look at the world as a series of texts they are interpreting is literary criticism. I don’t think it’s accidental that some of the most important theoretical breakthroughs we’ve had in the Humanities have not only come from scholars of Romanticism but from literary critical scholars. He just made all of that really present for me in real ways.” Dr. Bishop’s connection with Dr. Schaber, both as she talks to me and at the beginning of her dissertation, speaks volumes to the ways that professors can shape not only the educational outlook of students, but their personal ones.
When classes were still in person, the delight that Dr. Bishop took in fostering the sense of community and engagement in the classroom thrilled me. It was unlike any other class I could have taken at Oswego — among the discussion of poetry, there were the dogs, Sophie and Frances, for us to pet and hang out with, stuffed animals to warm our spirits, making bookmarks, and playing literary card games. Most of the reading for the course we completed in class together as well. I could imagine some of my sterner high school teachers, and even other college professors, balking at the fact that a professor could run a classroom with such deviation from strict academic focus and pressure. As Dr. Bishop tells me, and is obvious by the classroom environment, she loves teaching, “Even if I never found a permanent position, I would always keep teaching, because I love it.” The joy that Dr. Bishop takes in being a professor shines in the classroom and is palpable to every student enrolled, both when discussing the coursework and when not. Though she states most of her graduate school experience was negative, she found teaching to be the one positive. As a student, I only felt more and more comfortable discussing the literature and raising my hand to speak, even if I thought my ideas or interpretations may not mean much, the more we as a class bonded over these shared activities. I even watched students I knew from other classes who never speak raise their hand and found myself (as Dr. Bishop states she also likes to do) watching the change in students. The emphasis to which Dr. Bishop puts on communicating with each other as students is a direct reflection of how she runs classes.
At the heart of Dr. Bishop’s role at SUNY Oswego is self-discovery. She describes her pedagogical goals simply, “There is no value system I am trying to reproduce in my students, but I’m trying to help you find your own value system, and we do that through literature. So, along the way, it’s teaching you things like critical thinking, how to communicate effectively, it’s even teaching you how to persuade other people, but at the end of the day, it’s helping you find your value system. I don’t think there is anything more important than having a value system, even if it changes, even if you never live up to it.” This, to me, seems like such a heady goal that it is hard for me to synthesize in one take. Though Dr. Bishop states she will just pick a poem for a class because she likes it, she says that it doesn’t even matter if a student likes or dislikes the poem, but rather, it is about “what they learn about themselves in the act of reading the poem.”
She brings up an Ada Limón poem, “A Name”, that we went over in our class. It is strikingly short, one stanza and only eight lines:
“When Eve walked among
the animals and named them—
nightingale, redshouldered hawk,
fiddler crab, fallow deer—
I wonder if she ever wanted
them to speak back, looked into
their wide wonderful eyes and
whispered, Name me, name me.”
Though our class discussed and debated many different interpretations of the poem, such as the specific ties to religious interpretations of the creation story, where Adam might be, what the animals represent, why Eve was naming them, and what sin is, Dr. Bishop sees deeper into it, “For some people, it is a really powerful look on the way they were raised, or the way that culture reproduces stereotypes, whereas other people are drawn to the idea of naming animals and being named by animals. I think the way a student reacts to a poem teaches them about themselves and I think knowing yourself is the first step towards working towards your value system.”
My specific interpretation had been the Narrator was Adam, perhaps having split the work of naming the animals equally with Eve, thinking back after the fall and trying to understand why Eve had wanted to talk to the snake that led to their temptation (also noting that none of the animals listed are reptiles). A name is a vital part of an identity, and why would Eve have not wanted equal input from the animals? She and Adam did not get to choose their own names, and Eve is beginning to recognize the gravity of that, developing and learning as she navigates the Garden, perhaps more than Adam, understanding higher cognitive functions like inclusion, wants, and the power of speaking up for yourself. It is why she is targeted by the snake, and though Adam can understand this, he still cannot bear the heartbreak of being cast out. In this scenario, the aftermath is Adam and Eve are broken up, the burden of dooming humanity and seeing their nakedness something they are unable to parse in different ways for them both. While I was raised Catholic and understand the original story continues on to Adam and Eve’s children, Cain and Abel, I cannot see them in this version. Instead, I see two people, broken-hearted and unable to continue a relationship because they are unable to process such a cataclysmic change to their identities. Dr. Bishop is right—it reminds me of my last romantic relationship that went south, and the way I processed it. Though I don’t tell her this during our interview, it certainly is eye-opening for me, especially coming from such a short piece of literature.
The Limón poem sparks a conversation inside myself, like all the professors I interview will note about their experience with reading literature. Dr. Bishop is particular in talking about how there is no other human experience like sitting down to read and points out the fact that though conversation done through literature is one inside the self, it also communicates something about human psychology and how to read the world at large, as does writing. When creative writing, she specifically mentions communicating not only her emotional state, but also, the “three-dimensional experience of myself,” incorporating themes of philosophy and conceptual framework that is important to her. It is, in other words, an even deeper act of discovery that then breathes more of that into a reader.
Dr. Bishop, at the end of our interview, professes that she does not have any role models, as she was told not to believe in them growing up. However, it is hard not to make her into one of my own by the time we are done. She is intelligent, astute, thoughtful, and honest in a way that many women are taught not to be (which I speak from personal experience). Not only does she love her job, she also loves and respects the students in a way that fosters them both academically and emotionally. Though our class has now gone online, I am hopeful in the spring about trying to take another class with her in person again, as I recommend everyone does.
Dr. Bishop recommends checking out the following authors: Walter Benjamin, a German romantic writer, and Gershom Scholem, a Jewish mysticism scholar. Thank you to Dr. Bishop for allowing me to interview her.