Semester:
Offered:
Prof. Joyhanna Garza
T 9:00 AM - 11:45 AM
This course examines the co-articulations of race, ethnicity, and language across various historical, societal, and institutional contexts. Furthermore, we examine the ways in which racialized bodies come to be constructed as engaging in specific linguistic practices, and conversely, how linguistic practices come to stand as a proxy for racialized speakers.
By drawing attention to the historical and contemporary processes that structure the co-naturalization of language and race across diverse settings, this course brings together linguistic anthropological literature on language ideologies (and language and race) as well as theorizations of race from ethnic studies and critical race theory. By exposing students to both traditional and current models of language and ethno-racial identity, the course critically examines the treatment of race as an isolatable dimension while attending to the material dimensions of language. The scholarly work interrogate various sites of racial, ethnic, and linguistic negotiation. Crucially, this course aims to destabilize taken-for-granted notions about race and language and to examine the ways in which hegemonic power formations are reinforced or otherwise reconfigured in seemingly fleeting and/or mundane practices.