Isabella Maria Thorpe

Isabella Maria Thorpe is a writer-scholar from Tampa, Florida, based in NYC. She holds a BA in English and Political Science from Boston College and an MA in Performance Studies from NYU Tisch. Her research explores (im)migration, Latin American and Latinx diasporic studies, memory, assimilation, affect studies, and anticolonial resistance. She’s probably salsa dancing.

Project Title: We the Dinoflagellates: A Biomythography

Project Description: When the Spanish invaded the island of Borikén—better known by its colonial name, Puerto Rico—they cowered before an incandescent blue light illuminating the waters of Mosquito Bay, (mis)attributing the spectacle as the work of the Devil. This fateful encounter over 500 years ago indelibly shaped the ecosystem of Vieques, and since then, the Boricua bioluminescent dinoflagellate (Pyrodinium bahamense) has resisted further colonial efforts by Spain and the United States, evidencing resilience against tourism, coastal development, and climate change, evading death.

This project draws on the theories of Karen Barad on agential realism and intra-action, Jacques Derrida on the animot and limitrophy, Donna Haraway on kinship and the multifaceted SF, and José Esteban Muñoz on the brown commons. Guided by these critical theorists and Boricua epistemologies, I explore how the dinoflagellates—as sentient nonhuman organic life—survive together as a collective, radiating affect through their rhythmic glow to the Boricuas with sea legs. In doing so, they form more-than-human assemblages that cultivate mutual response-ability for the island's future in the wake of severe imperial threats. This project is written as a series of experimental poetry and folktales from the perspective of the dinoflagellates, stepping into their collective consciousness, joining their speculative ensemble dance.

Project Inspiration: We the Animals by Justin Torres, Vista del amanecer en el trópico by Guillermo Cabrera Infante, Michelle Castañeda’s class Environmental Performances, my Papa Carlos, who endeared me to Latin American mythological folklore and folk music, and a wonderfully chaotic kayak trip with my mom and sister in Fajardo when we traveled to my mom’s birthplace/original hometown of San Juan and glimpsed living magic.