Ishmael's Ax at the Virginia Tech English Department

Allah:

Recall that reader Ray F. theorized a few days ago that “Ismail/Ishmael Ax” was a reference to James Fenimore Cooper’s story “The Prairie,” the lead character of which was “Ishmael Bush” — spelled the same way Cho spells it here. So let’s not rule that theory out just yet.

No, let's not indeed.

I don't think Psy-Cho was the type to do a lot of outside reading unless you count staring glassy-eyed at ogrish.com. So was The Prairie taught recently at Virginia Tech? Looks like it may have been. In this English Department newsletter, (note--link goes to large .pdf) an alum recalls (page 15) her decision in 1984 to become an English major:

So, while registering for class for the next term, I randomly selected an English class - American Literature of the 19th Century for Winter Quarter 1984, taught by Nancy Metz.
January through March in Blacksburg was cold and so dreary that year, but Dr. Metz kept the class lively with close readings and debates about books written centuries before. So it was while reading and discussing works like Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser and The Prairie by James Fenimore Cooper that I began to understand that I needed to be an English major.

that was 1984, but Dr. Metz is still there. In fact she's the English department's chair for undergraduate studies.

And Cooper is taught as well, though I'm not sure whether it's The Prairie or one of his more well-known works. Here's a course description from the Fall 2006 course catalog (available as a .pdf here):

English 2525: Survey of American Literature I
(Meets an Area 2 core requirement)
...
Sorrentino [N.B. Probably Prof. Paul Sorrentino]
This course covers American literature from the beginning to the end of the Civil War . Starting with Spanish and Native American narratives of contact between cultures, the early sections of thevcourse will progress from the self-questioning of Puritan writers such as Bradford, Bradstreet, Taylor, and Rowlandson to the mythologizing tendencies of Crèvecoeur, Franklin, Irving, and Cooper. We will then explore African-American texts by Jacobs and Douglass as well as the roots of American Romanticism in Poe, Hawthorne, Melville, Emerson and Thoreau. We will also study poetry by Whitman, Dickinson, and others. Throughout the course, there will be an emphasis on the literary, historical, and social contexts within which writers were working. There will be a midterm, final, quizzes, short writing assignments, and a journal.

It would be interesting to know whether Psy-Cho took that course and encountered Cooper's Prairie there. It would perhaps clear up some of the confusion about his reference to Ishmael's Ax, and it might also serve to dispel some of the persistent rumors about his connections with Islamic terrorism.

But in the grand scheme of things it's not that important right now. So please don't bother the poor English faculty about this; I don't plan to. No doubt they're besieged with calls from the press and would just like some peace for a while. If anyone following this knows anything about the questions I've raised here, of course, please leave a comment or contact me at seedub, on hotmail, dot com.