Biography at a Glance
Born in Cedar City,
Dr. Bishop graduated from Cedar City High School in 1992. With perhaps an unjustified sense of confidence, he chose to study music at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah.
Spending hours a day locked in a small practice room with nothing but his
saxophone soon proved to be too depressing, so he changed his major to humanities.
Dr. Bishop graduated Magna Cum Laude from BYU in 1998 with a BA in
humanities with an art history emphasis (with minors in music performance, German, and
English literature). Changing scenery drastically, he then attended the University of Utah
in pursuit of a master’s degree in English. In 2000,
Dr. Bishop graduated from that institution with an MA in English/American studies with a film emphasis.
Dr. Bishop came to Southern Utah University in the fall of 2000. He initially taught business English and grammar courses, but soon he was teaching computer application classes as well. This technological track soon ended, however, when Dr. Bishop moved into his proper home in the English Department to teach courses in composition and fantasy literature.
Dr. Bishop received a PhD in American literature and film from the University of Arizona in 2009. His dissertation addressing the cultural relevance of zombie cinema--composed under the guidance of Susan White, Jerrold Hogle, and Carlos Gallego--was published by McFarland & Co., Publishers as American Zombie Gothic in 2010. He now teaches courses at SUU in composition, American literature, Young Adult literature, African-American literature, fantasy fiction, and film studies.
Kyle is married to Rachel, and they have a son named Xander and a daughter named Sydney.
ENGL 1010: Introduction to Academic Writing (syllabus)
Honors 1010 (syllabus)
ENGL 2010: Intermediate Writing: Writing in a Persuasive Mode
Writing about Music (syllabus)
Writing about the Fantastic (syllabus)
ENGL 2130: Introduction to Imaginative Literature (syllabus)
ENGL 2230: Introduction to Mythology (syllabus)
ENGL 3110: Literature and Film (syllabus)
ENGL 3210: American Literature I (syllabus)
ENGL 3220: American Literature II (syllabus)
ENGL 3280: Young Adult Literature (syllabus)
ENGL 4310: Poe & Hawthorne (syllabus)
ENGL 4510: African American Literature (syllabus)
ENGL 4510: Harry Potter in Context (syllabus)
Tanner Distinguished Faculty Lecturer, Southern Utah
University, 2012
Distinguished Educator Award, Southern Utah University,
2010
Barry Briggs Teaching Award, University of Arizona, 2007
American Zombie Gothic: The Rise and Fall (and Rise) of the Walking Dead in Popular Culture. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2010. (website)
“Battling Monsters and Becoming Monstrous: Human Devolution in The Walking Dead.” Monstrous Culture in the 21st Century: A Reader. Eds. Marina Levina and Diem-my Bui. New York: Continuum Press, 2012 [forthcoming]
“From the Earth to Poe to the Moon: The Science Fiction Narrative as Precursor to Technological Reality.” Coauthored with Todd Robert Petersen. Adapting Poe: Re-Imaginings in International and Popular Culture. Eds. Dennis R. Perry and Carl H. Sederholm. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012. 165–177.
“The Pathos of The Walking Dead: Bringing the Terror Back to Zombie Cinema.” Triumph of The Walking Dead: Robert Kirkman’s Zombie Epic on Page and Screen. Ed. James Lowder. Smart Pop. Dallas: Benbella Books, 2011. 1–14.
“Assemblage Filmmaking: Approaching the Multi-Source Adaptation and Reexamining Romero’s Night of the Living Dead.” Adaptation Studies: New Beginnings. Eds. Christa Albrecht-Crane and Dennis Cutchins. Teaneck, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson UP, 2010. 263–277.
“The Threat of the Gothic Patriarchy in Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds.” The Rocky Mountain Review 65.2 (2011): 125–147.
“Vacationing in Zombieland: The Classical Functions of the Modern Zombie Comedy.” Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts 22.1 (2011): 24–38.
“The Idle Proletariat: Dawn of the Dead, Consumer Ideology, and the Loss of Productive Labor.” The Journal of Popular Culture 43.2 (2010): 234-248.
“Dead Man Still Walking: Explaining the Zombie Renaissance.” Journal of Popular Film and Television 37.1 (2009): 16-25.
“Technophobia and the Cyborg Menace: Buffy Summers as Neo-Human Avatar.” Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts 19.3 (2008): 349–362.
“The Sub-Subaltern Monster: Imperialist Hegemony and the Cinematic Voodoo Zombie.” The Journal of American Culture 31.2 (2008): 141-152.
“Artistic Schizophrenia: How Fight Club’s Message Is Subverted by Its Own Nature.” Studies in Popular Culture 29.1 (2006): 41-56.
“Raising the Dead: Unearthing the Non-Literary Origins of Zombie Cinema.” Journal of Popular Film and Television 33.4 (2006): 196-205.
“The Mediating Heart: Finding a Solution to Labor Conflicts in A Hazard of New Fortunes.” Journal of the Utah Academy 81 (2004): 177-183.
“The Zombie Renaissance: How the Walking Dead Have Come to Dominate Popular Culture” at the Kennedy Theatre, University of Hawai’i, Honolulu, November 2012.
“‘We are the walking dead!’: Why Zombies Matter” as the Tanner Distinguished Faculty Lecture, Southern Utah University, Cedar City, September 2012.
Keynote address: “The Rise of Zombie Studies: How the Walking Dead Invaded the Academy—and Why It Matters” at the First International Academic Conference on Zombies, Montreal, July 2012.
“Zombies, Vigilantes, and Antiheroes: The Ambiguities of Monstrousness in The Walking Dead” at the World Horror Convention 2012, Salt Lake City, April 2012.
“Walking Dead U: How the Zombie Renaissance Makes Zombie Studies Possible” at the Raising the Undead: The Image of the Zombie in Transnational Popular Culture Colloquium, Brown University, Providence, November 2011.
“To Live, to Die, or to Go Zombie: Teenage Anxiety in The Forest of Hands and Teeth” at the Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association Conference, October 2012. [forthcoming]
“Living Harry Potter: Recreating Hogwarts through Study Abroad” at the Western Regional Honors Council Conference, April 2012.
“‘I always wanted to see how the other half lives’: The Contemporary Zombie as Seductive Proselyte” at the International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts, March 2012.
"'We are the walking dead!': Human Monstrosity and the Victimization of the Twenty-first Century Zombie" at the Popular and American Culture Association in the South Annual Meeting, October 2011.
“They’re Supposed to be Scary: How The Walking Dead Remembers What George Romero Forgot” at the Popular and American Culture Association National Conference, April 2011.
“The Paratext of Hugo Cabret: Multimodality and the Future of Adolescent Literature” at the Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association Conference, October 2010.
“Defending Zombieland: How the Apocalypse Saved the American Family” at the International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts, March 2010.
“The Home Fires Are Burning: Conflagration as a Trope for Twentieth-Century Racial Tension” at the Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association Conference, October 2009.
“‘If Only Your Father Were Here!’ The Threat of the Gothic Patriarchy in Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds” at the Popular and American Culture Association Annual Meeting, April 2009.