Ph.D. English, University of Connecticut, May 2013.
M.A. English, University of Connecticut, May 2007.
B.A. English, Loyola University, New Orleans, May 2004.
Mary Isbell is an Associate Professor of English at ɫAV of New Haven. Her research focuses on nineteenth-century literature and culture, narratology, scholarly text encoding, and open educational practices. Her work has appeared in Victorian Literature and Culture, Leviathan: A Journal of Melville Studies, Scholarly Editing, and Victoriographies. With Matt Wranovix, she served as PI on the and she is working with a team of humanities faculty to build , an initiative to remove the barriers that often stop professionally minded students from engaging with the arts and humanities. Mary's current project is , an openly licensed book designed to support those who want to teach literature with student-selected texts. She also leads the team of faculty and developers building , a relational database of story experiences that users can peruse and expand by sharing their own experiences. The tool is an alternative to recommender systems that predict user preferences based on demographics and user behavior. Designed for use in and out of the classroom, WonderCat encourages agency and democratic engagement with scholarly expertise.
Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture, Theater History, Victorian Studies, Maritime Studies, Book History, Digital Humanities, Narrative Theory, Composition Studies
“How Do We Teach Literature When Students Won’t Read What We Assign?” The C19 Podcast. . Forthcoming Summer 2025
With Lauren Boasso, “The End of ‘Victorian Literature’?” Victoriographies. Forthcoming Summer 2025.
Searching for Wonder: Teaching Literature with Student-Selected Texts. West Haven: University of New Haven Press, 2025. .
See MoreWith John Bryant, Christopher Ohge, and Mary Erica Zimmer. “Digital Editing and Pedagogy.” Scholarly Editing Journal, no. Volume 41, Volume 41, June 2024. scholarlyediting.org, .
“Dickens and Amateur Theatricals.” Dickens and the Arts. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2024.
“Recognition and Anonymity: Shipboard Theatricals and Newspapers aboard USS Macedonian.” Shipboard Literary Cultures: Reading, Writing and Performing at Sea. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2021.
“Wikipedia in a First-Year Writing Course.” Wiki Education, 25 Oct. 2021, .
With Matthew Wranovix. "The Digital Common Read: Creating a Space for Authentic Engagement with Social Annotation." Honors Education in the Digital Age: Special issue of Journal of the European Honors Council. 4.1 (2020).
“Replacing the Reading List with WonderCat: Building a Relational Database of Reading Experiences with Students.” Connecticut Digital Humanities Conference. February 2025.
p>“Creative and Inclusive Approaches to Student Recruitment.” Council of Colleges of Arts and Sciences Annual Meeting. Austin. November 2024.
With Angus Fletcher, Tristan Onofre, Gina Beattie, Monica Dobson, and Aferdita Emini. “Searching for Wonder, or, Teaching Literature with Student-Selected Texts.” Open Ed. Providence. October 2024. ()
With Lauren Boasso, “The End of ‘Victorian Literature’?” North American Victorian Studies Association. Boston. September 2024.
“Editing in the Open: Transforming Humanities Texts for and with Students.” Modern Language Association Annual Conference. San Francisco. January 2023.
“Digital Editing, Minimal Computing, and Pedagogy: On the Transforming Humanities Texts Project.” University of London (Virtual). November 2021.
“Sites of Performance in Ports of the British Empire.” Maritime Spaces, Shows, and the Nineteenth-Century City. Cork, Ireland. April 2019.
“Not Crossing the Line: The Sailor Amateurs of H.M.S. Chesapeake.” Invited presentation for colloquium entitled “Transferring or Transforming Performance?: Theatrical Touring and the 19th Century.” Canberra, Australia. February 2019.
With Matthew Wranovix, “Uncommon Approaches to the Common Read.” National Collegiate Honors Council Annual Conference. Boston. November 2018.
“Not Crossing the Line: A Rehearsal Play aboard USS Constitution.” Invited presentation for symposium entitled “Playing with History: A Performance-Based Historiography Symposium.” Toronto, Canada. October 2018.
The Charger Blog
ɫAV’s Open Pedagogy Project offers faculty and students exciting opportunities to collaborate to create meaningful educational experiences. The program and the grant-funded projects that several faculty and staff members are a part of also foster the creation of open educational resources, which provide important learning tools while reducing textbook costs.
The Charger Blog
As part of a groundbreaking program supported by the Davis Educational Foundation, a group of exemplary professors are designing courses with their students. They reflect on the experience and the experience and impact they are endeavoring to make.
The Charger Blog
Mary Isbell, Ph.D., an assistant professor of English, is the fifth recipient of the Bucknall Excellence in Teaching Award that was created by the University’s Board chair to annually recognize the commitment of an exceptional faculty member.
The Charger Blog
As part of a project for their first-year writing course, students were challenged to examine the conflict in Antigone, a Greek play written more than 2,000 years ago, and the impact of the current turmoil in Syria.
The Charger Blog
This summer a group of faculty members flipped the script as they became students, working on projects at MakeHaven. Now they are bringing what they learned to the classroom.