“Dutch Bingo”, a term for discovering relatives and relationships with people you never knew you had, is a common pastime here on the Calvin campus, and it is a very telling means to glimpse the strength of the close-knit, traditional Dutch presence both at Calvin College and in western Michigan in general. Along those lines, many of the faculty members at Calvin are themselves alumni, or have wound up at Calvin from other Dutch communities in places like Iowa and California.
This doesn’t describe Professor Brian Ingraffia, an associate professor in Calvin’s English department. Having grown up in the American southwest, Professor Ingraffia brings some variety to the English faculty. Students may see him walking between buildings wearing a black fedora, his long grey hair pulled into a frizzy ponytail. And while even Michigan’s hardiest native may bundle up throughout her frigid winters, Professor Ingraffia still finds things a little too warm for his liking and always keeps his office window propped open a crack. Nevertheless, Professor Ingraffia finds common ground with his fellow English faculty and students native to the Midwest through his devotion to Christian thought and scholarship.
Education:
Prof. Ingraffia graduated from the University of Texas at Austin in 1984, the school where he realized his love for literature. “I originally wanted to be a lawyer, and when people asked me what kind of lawyer I wanted to be, I would say, ‘A rich one,’” Ingraffia recalls with laughter. After starting at UT Austin, it was not long before Ingraffia had found his niche: “I fell in love with the university.” In the framework of the University’s liberal arts honors program, Prof. Ingraffia was equally drawn to both literature and philosophy, and although literature eventually won out, he still incorporates his interest in philosophy into his professional work.
After graduating from UT Austin, Dr. Ingraffia immediately undertook graduate studies at the University of California, Irvine, receiving his Master of Arts in English in 1986 and continuing on to a PhD in American literature with an emphasis on critical theory in 1993, working as a secretary intermittently throughout this time. The subject of Dr. Ingraffia’s doctoral dissertation was “Vanquishing God’s Shadow: Postmodern Theory, Ontotheology, and Biblical Theology”. In 1998, Dr. Ingraffia attended a summer seminar on Christian scholarship that was hosted at Calvin College; in addition to describing the seminar as “one of the best intellectual experiences of my life”, it was also Dr. Ingraffia’s first exposure to Calvin College. Four years later, in 2002, Dr. Ingraffia left his position in the English department at Biola University in Southern California to join the English faculty here at Calvin.
Academic Interests and Specializations:
Dr. Ingraffia’s interest lies largely in American literature of the 20th century, of which he says, “I like to teach the literature of my own culture, and of the contemporary period. I feel that I can have more influence that way.” In addition to contemporary American literature, Dr. Ingraffia specializes in multiple different aspects of literature, including postmodern American fiction, postmodern theory and culture, literature and religion, contemporary literary theory, history of critical theory, philosophy and literature, and hermeneutics.
His interest in postmodern theory and American fiction informed his doctoral dissertation, as well as provided the groundwork for his book, Postmodern Theory and Biblical Theology: Vanquishing God’s Shadow, which was published by Cambridge University Press in 1996. Most recently, Dr. Ingraffia authored an article entitled “If Jesus Existed I Wouldn’t Be Clean: Self-Torture in Flannery O’Connor’s Wise Blood” which appeared in the Flannery O’Connor Review in 2009. Dr. Ingraffia’s current projects include assembling an anthology of theoretical essays regarding religion and literature of the 20th century and the post-20th century era, a collection that covers a range of modern, postmodern, and post-secular literature. The post-secular literature intrigues Dr. Ingraffia in particular because of a trend he sees of a new openness to spirituality in recent literature, in contrast to the writings of the postmodern era. Dr. Ingraffia was the recipient of a grant from Calvin’s Center for Christian Scholarship for compiling this collection. In addition to this anthology, Dr. Ingraffia is also working on editing a collection of parodies of religion in postmodern American fiction.
Teaching:
Every student who completes a Calvin diploma must take a minimum of a single semester of some sort of literature course. The ambitious may take a stab at Chad Engbers' Russian Literature class (which Engbers himself admits is the most demanding route to take to fulfill the literature core requirement), but many may find it a lot more comforting to take one of Calvin’s American literature classes and contemplate literature that is “closer to home”. Enter Dr. Ingraffia and his class on Modern American Literature.
During all his years of teaching, Dr. Ingraffia’s style has remained much the same, but there have been a few differences he has noticed since the time he first started teaching. “My style has always really stressed class discussion, and that hasn’t changed,” Dr. Ingraffia said. “But one thing I have noticed is that as time goes on, I get through less and less material in the course of a class,” he added with a laugh. Some new course material has found its way into Dr. Ingraffia’s repertoire, namely an interest in African literature which he developed since he started teaching. One thing that has not changed at all is the unique experience Dr. Ingraffia enjoys in the act of teaching itself. “I find that when I’m teaching or working one-on-one with students, I forget everything else, which is good, because I tend to be a worrier about things,” Dr. Ingraffia says. But when I’m teaching, I find that everything else goes away, and I find myself really there in the moment. It just happens, and I don’t have to try.”
Describing his experience in Dr. Ingraffia’s English 101 class, one student said, “I appreciated his excitement for whatever topic we were discussing and his calm manner of dealing with issues. If something came up, he was a very understanding guy.” This student also attested to the academic rigor that Dr. Ingraffia brings to the class: “The most important thing I learned was to finish a paper a day before the due date. This gives ample time to review it and perfect it. You get out whatever you put into it.”
Another student who had taken an American Literature class with Dr. Ingraffia remarked on his emphasis on class discussion, saying, “It encouraged class participation and really engaging with reading material.” When asked what she took away from the class, she said, “I learned how to sharpen my paper-writing skills by editing in drafts and focusing on essay structure, transitions, and grammatical coherence. I also learned to word my thesis to demonstrate exactly what I wanted to get across.”
Personal Interests/Hobbies:
Dr. Ingraffia’s love of literature continues outside of the classroom, and his personal library consists of 3,000 books. His favorite books are Gravity’s Rainbow, by Thomas Pynchon, and Mr. Ives’ Christmas, by Oscar Hijuelos. In addition to books, Dr. Ingraffia is equally passionate about music. Jazz and blues are his favorite genres, and he really enjoys live performances, especially those featuring improvisation. His criteria for evaluating a particular artist? “They’ve got to have chops,” Dr. Ingraffia said with a smile. “I have a very discriminating ear—some would say opinionated.”
5 Facts:
- His favorite feature of his new office in the Covenant Fine Arts Center is the large window.
- He once taught a Calvin Interim class on blues music.
- In 2008, he moderated a joint interview with authors Sefi Atta and Diane Glancy as a part of Calvin’s biennial Festival of Faith and Writing.
- When asked to compare Calvin with the other schools where he has studied or taught, Dr. Ingraffia replied, “The rejection of fundamentalism [is what sets it apart], and the approach of engaging culture. Here things are presented in an outward-looking manner.”
- For his relationships with students, Dr. Ingraffia prefers the moniker "Dr. I".
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