Megan Isaac
Professor of English
Department: English
Email: misaac2@elon.edu
Phone number: (336) 278-6480
Professional Expertise
News & Notes
Education
Ph.D., English Literature, University of California, Los Angeles
M.A., English Literature, University of California, Los Angeles
B.A., English Literature, Lawrence University, Appleton, Wisconsin
Courses Taught
ECF 311 Elon College Fellows Second Year Seminar
ECF 211 Elon College Fellows Junior Year Seminar
ELN 101 Orientation and Advising
ENG 495 Senior Seminar in Literature
ENG 399 Young Adult Literature
ENG 342 Shakespeare
ENG 333 Women and Literature
ENG 323 Renaissance Literature
ENG 322 Medieval Literature
ENG 274 American Authors Now: Ursula Le Guin
ENG 255 Utopian and Dystopian Literature 2
ENG 255 Playing with Shakespeare
ENG 255 Renaissance Witchcraft on Stage and in the Courts
ENG 255 Tainted or Tempting: The Construction of Female Heroes and Villains
ENG 255 Diverse Voices in Young Adult Literature
ENG 221 British Literature 1
ENG 171 Secrets, Spies, and Surveillance in Young Adult Literature
ENG 110 College Writing
GBL 283 Theatrical London
GST 241 Italian Comedy
GST 241 Preparatory Seminar for Italian Comedy
HNR 134 Forging Cultures: Books, Politics, and Children
IDS 281 and 282 Liberal Arts Forum
MED 540 Literature for Children and Youth: Analysis and Application
Leadership Positions
Elon College Fellows Arts and Humanities Branch Director (2018-present)
Liberal Arts Forum Advisor (Spring 2015, Spring 2016-2018)
Interim Director of National and International Fellowships (2017)
Department Chair of English (2012-2016)
Current Projects
My current projects include a study of surveillance culture in children's and young adult literature. I am interested in how the growing technologies that simultaneously provide information for us and report information about us are being represented in texts for young readers both literally and metaphorically. Are these technologies portrayed as something authorities control or that an individual controls? Are they harmful or helpful? Who is represented as having the power to make decisions about the structure and use of surveillance technologies?
To put this in pop culture terms--the vampire hero from Twilight, Edward Cullen, can read the minds of every character except his love interest, Bella. By the end of the series, though, she joyfully discovers the ability to open her mind to him. How does Edward's ability to spy on nearly anyone at nearly any time affect his character and a reader's perception of him? How important is privacy? Should we view the absence of it as romantic or threatening or something else? Or, in the Harry Potter series, readers learn about the past by traveling into the memories of other characters through the Pensieve. But how reliable are those memories and how are readers persuaded to trust this form of surveillance?
I am also working on a study of the representation of female pilots in the 1930s and 1940s as represented in young adult literature, especially in the work of Elizabeth Wein.
Publications
RECENT ARTICLES AND CHAPTERS
“Surveillance,” in Children’s Literature and Culture. Ed. Rebecca Rowe. Routledge. (Forthcoming 2025.)
“Explorations, Aliens, and Technologies: Promise and Peril in Science Fiction,” in The Cambridge History of Children’s Literature in English. Eds. Eugene Giddens and Zoe Jaques. Cambridge University Press. (Forthcoming, 2025)
“N. K. Jemisin’s The Fifth Season and Reading Orogeny Through (Dis)ability Theory,” (with Emily Guyton Lange) in N. K. Jemisin and Kinship Studies, edited by Berit Aström. Lexington Press (2023), 115-134.
“Felix Ever After: A Mystery in Progress,” (with Lucy Garcia) in Queer Adolescent Literature as a Complement to the English Language Arts Curriculum, 2nd Edition, edited by Paula Greathouse and Henry “Cody” Miller. Rowman & Littlefield (2022).
Secrets and Spies: A paired study of E. Lockhart’s The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks and Shakespeare’s Much Ado about Nothing in Shakespeare and Canonical Literature: Pairing and Teaching edited by Victor Malo-Juvera, Paula Greathouse, and Brooke Eisenbach by Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2021, 153-172.
“Peer Review and the Writer: Teaching Students to Ask for the Advice They Need.” Journal of Teaching Writing 35.1 (2020), 83-102.
“Surveillance as a Topic of Study in the Work of E. Lockhart and Cory Doctorow.” Children’s Literature in Education 51, (2020), 228-244.
“A Character of One’s Own: The Perils of Female Authorship in the Young Adult Novel from Alcott to Birdsall.” Children’s Literature 46, (2018), 133-168.
BOOKS
Suzanne Fisher Staples: The Setting is the Story. Scarecrow Press, 2010.
Heirs to Shakespeare: Reinventing the Bard in Young Adult Literature, Portsmouth: Heinemann, March 2000.
Service Activities
Elon College Fellows Advisory Committee (2019-present)
University Library Committee (2019-2021)
Honors Degree Advisory Committee (2016-2020)
FR&D Reassigned Time Subcommittee (2019-2020)
Honors Program Advisory Committee (2009-2011) and (2016-2019)
President of the Elon Chapter of PBK (2014-2016)
Phi Beta Kappa Committes (Nominating Committe, Executive Committee, Members in Course Selection Committee, Constitution Committee)
Undergraduate Student Media Board (2010-2012)
Undergraduate Research Program Advisory Committee (2009-2012)