By Richard Werbner (NHC Fellow, 2011–12) Richard Werbner takes readers on a journey though contemporary charismatic wisdom divination in southern Africa. Beginning with the silent language of the divinatory lots, Werbner deciphers the everyday, metaphorical, and poetic language that is used to reveal their meaning. Through Werbner's skillful interpretations of the language of divination, a … Continued
By Nicholas Harkness (NHC Fellow, 2016–17)
By Tsitsi Ella Jaji (NHC Fellow, 2017–18) Tsitsi Ella Jaji’s second full-length collection of poems, Mother Tongues, begins at home, with the first words and loves we learn, and the most intimate vows we swear. How deep does your language go back? Jaji’s artful verse is a three-tiered gourd of sustenance, vessel, and folklore. The tongues … Continued
By Edwin D. Craun (NHC Fellow, 2002–03) Presented in three sections—Sins of the Tongue, Punishing Deviant Speech, and Deviant Speech and Gender—the essays included here give a clear picture of what we know about deviant speech in medieval culture, a picture that has begun to achieve the depth and richness of scholarship on slander in … Continued
By Tista Bagchi (NHC Fellow, 2001–02) The Sentence in Language and Cognition is about the significant role of the sentence in linguistic cognition and in the practical domains of human existence. Dr. Tista Bagchi has written a comprehensive assessment of the structure and cognitive function of the sentence and the clause in the context of real-world … Continued
Edited by Lydia H. Liu (NHC Fellow, 1997–98) The problem of translation has become increasingly central to critical reflections on modernity and its universalizing processes. Approaching translation as a symbolic and material exchange among peoples and civilizations—and not as a purely linguistic or literary matter, the essays in Tokens of Exchange focus on China and its interactions … Continued
French language and world history teachers are often searching for entry-points to teach about questions of language, power, and colonialism in Africa. Language is a frequently overlooked domain when studying larger historical processes. Using Mauritian Creole language – "Kreol" – as an archive, this webinar will provide a lens to understand language development under situations … Continued
Richard Pryor may have been the most unlikely star in Hollywood history. Raised in his family’s brothels, in Peoria, Illinois, he could alchemize his stand-up by delving fully, even painfully, into the “off-color” life he'd known. Starring bigoted Archie Bunker, “All in the Family” won numerous Emmys and Golden Globe awards until it ended in … Continued
Grace Momberger describes how the story of one woman’s ability to make poetry without sound altered the way she perceived the very meaning of communication.