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Race and language

February 2024: Considering Language about “the Conflict”

As the world remains transfixed by daily news reports about the ongoing conflict involving Israel and Palestine, playing out largely in Gaza, some observers have directed attention to how events are being verbally described in the English-language press. It would appear that a war of actions is being bolstered by a war of words.
Laura Smith-Khan

Senior Lecturer School of Law University of New England Armidale, Australia Affiliated Member, the Centre for the Social Study of Migration and Refugees (CESSMIR), Ghent University, Belgium Laura.Smith-Khan@une.edu.au Read Laura’s December 2021 and May 2020 Spotlights on Language, Culture and Justice. I am a Senior Lecturer in Law at the University of New England, Australia. From 2019 to…
Maya Angela Smith

Associate Professor of French University of Washington Seattle, Washington USA mayaas@uw.edu Having received my PhD in romance languages and linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley, I investigate identity formations among marginalized groups in the African diaspora, particularly in the postcolonial francophone world. Much of my work has been focused on Senegal and its diaspora.…
Vijay Ramjattan

Instructor International Foundation Program University of Toronto Toronto, Canada vijay.ramjattan@mail.utoronto.ca I recently received my PhD in adult education and community development, with a specialization in workplace learning and social change, from the University of Toronto. My research interests revolve around the intersection of language and race in the workplace. These interests particularly concern the everyday…
Marguerite Lukes

Director of Research and Innovation Internationals Network of Public Schools Affiliated Faculty, International Education and Development Department of Applied Statistics, Social Science and Humanities Steinhardt School of Education, Culture and Human Development New York University New York City marguerite.lukes@nyu.edu I am a researcher / practitioner with my academic roots in applied linguistics and education. My…
Jonneke Koomen

Associate Professor of Politics and Sociology Co-chair, Women’s and Gender Studies Willamette University Salem, Oregon jkoomen@willamette.edu I am associate professor of politics, sociology, and women’s and gender studies. I received a PhD in political science from the University of Minnesota. I trained as a critical international relations scholar, though I draw on a broad range…
Molly Hamm-Rodríguez

Assistant Professor, Social Foundations of Education University of South Florida mhammrodriguez@usf.edu I am a linguistic anthropologist of education broadly interested in the relationships between language, race, migration, labor, and schooling as they shape the social futures of youth and young adults in global school-to-work, college and career readiness, and workforce development programs. I use ethnography,…
Rebecca Ruth Gould

Distinguished Professor of Comparative Poetics and Global Politics SOAS University of London United Kingdom rg52@soas.ac.uk I am a scholar, writer and translator currently based at SOAS University of London, working on the intersections of literary, legal and political theory. Much of my research focuses on the Middle East and the Muslim regions of the former…
Reinmar Fries-Beattie

Sociologist University of New Hampshire Durham, New Hampshire rcf11@wildcats.unh.edu I graduated with a PhD in sociology from the University of New Hampshire, where my dissertation work examined how those perceived as foreign, Middle Eastern and/or Muslims are disproportionately labeled as terrorists in U.S. news media and the effect that this has on the public’s perceptions…
Sara de Jong

Professor in Politics University of York United Kingdom sara.dejong@york.ac.uk Read Sara’s February 2020 Spotlight on Language, Culture and Justice. I am a professor in the Department of Politics at the University of York. I have held (visiting) fellowships at the University of Vienna (EU FP7 Marie Curie Fellowship), University of Goettingen, the International Institute of Social…
April 2023: “Multilingual Life on a Monolingual Campus: Findings and Recommendations”

This month’s Spotlight focuses on a project of the Language, Culture and Justice Hub, “Multilingual Life on a Monolingual Campus,” whose final report is now available. Six Brandeis University student researchers collaborated with Hub director Leigh Swigart, seeking to shed light on how international students live their linguistic lives on our campus. A central question for the study…
March 2023: ‘#GLAD23 offers diverse perspectives on the importance of language rights’

This month’s Spotlight provides a brief overview of the recently concluded Global Language Advocacy Day 2023 (#GLAD23), organized by the Global Coalition for Language Rights. This year’s GLAD theme was Language Rights Save Lives. The Coalition works at the intersection of language, digital and human rights. Its aims are: · To support global efforts towards increasing access to critical…
November 2022: “Decolonizing Accent in English-Language Teaching”

This month’s Spotlight comes from Language, Culture and Hub member Mingyi Li. Mingyi is a Ph.D. student at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) at the University of Toronto. For her Master’s degree, she explored how Western influence has affected Chinese doctoral students’ understanding of the West before they came to Canada, as…
March 2022: “Linguistic profiling: An under-recognized force in the justice system and beyond”

LCJ Hub member Shawna Shapiro, Associate Professor of writing and linguistics at Middlebury College in the US, calls our attention to an often unperceived influence on our interactions and understandings, including those in the legal field. Read more about Shawna’s work at her college webpage. One of the commonplaces in the legal profession and the criminal…
December 2021: “Securing the Borders of English and Whiteness”

Brass ‘White Australia’ protection badge, 1906. Image credit: National Museum of Australia This month’s Spotlight features a recently published commentary from Language on the Move (LOTM), a peer-reviewed sociolinguistics research site devoted to multilingualism, language learning, and intercultural communication in the contexts of globalization and migration. It was prepared by Ingrid Piller, LOTM editor and Distinguished Professor…
March 2020: “Searching for Language to Describe Discrimination on the Basis of Work and Descent”

This commentary was contributed by Hub member Rajesh Sampath, associate professor of the philosophy of justice, rights and social change at the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis. I am a part of an international group of NGO leaders, activists, scholars, artists and former heads of minority rights divisions of major multilateral institutions.…
December 2019: ‘Race, Language and Belonging: How Just is our Listening?’

A recent talk by University of Toronto scholar Vijay Ramjattan delves into the field of raciolinguistics, which examines how language is used to construct race and how ideas of race influence language and language use, especially in relation to racialized subjects. Scholars Nelson Flores (University of Pennsylvania) and Jonathan Rosa (Stanford University) coined the term “raciolinguistic ideologies”…