Area of Research / Interest:  Language and Social Justice, Technology and Postcolonialism, Global Black Feminisms, Ethics and Political Philosophy, Representation and Cultural Politics, Affect Theory

Undergraduate Education Institution:  Brooklyn College, CUNY

Undergraduate Major: Communication & Visual/Media Studies

Biography: isaiah is a poet and scholar interested broadly in communicative dilemmas of our modern scene. Their debut poetry collection, NULL LANDING (2022) was chosen as winner of the 2020 Slope Editions Book Prize and a finalist for the Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Foundation 2023 Legacy Award in Poetry. Their second book, ANYTHING WITH SPIRIT (2025) is forthcoming from Roof Books.

Their scholarly research and artistic practice both proceed from a question far more subtle than it first appears: "how can I be who I am?" And moreover, what does answering this question truthfully and actually require of me, given the complexity of the present cultural-political landscape and its aesthetic, economic and symbolic terrains?

These questions have led to rethinking knotty interplays of technology, colonialism and that which we call the Self. isaiah has since refined their pursuit to include thinking about information ecosystems as they relate to black personality and its capacity to both frustrate the dominant Western ethical framework and clarify the global configuration of power.

They were born and raised in Burlington, Vermont. isaiah studied film and ethnic studies at Columbia University and Brooklyn College, CUNY before moving to Troy, New York to pursue a doctoral degree in communication and rhetoric at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Email:  hinesi@rpi.edu