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The Politics of Transligualism: After Englishes

The Politics of Translingualism.jpg

Time: Oct. 25, 2017, 2:15 p.m. - 3:40 p.m.

Location: Kilian Room, 500 Hall of Languages

Jerry Won Lee (University of California, Irvine)

Drawing from his newly released book The Politics of Translingualism: After Englishes, Professor Won Lee discusses the politics of evaluating language, including different Englishes, at a moment of unprecedented linguistic plurality worldwide. He argues for an ongoing need to confront the metadiscourse of plurality and difference and to re-evaluate the very epistemologies of evaluation in the first place.

Presented by:
Writing Studies, Rhetoric, and Composition
Syracuse University Humanities Center

Co-Sponsors:
Democratizing Knowledge
School of Education
Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics
Composition and Cultural Rhetoric Graduate Program


BIOGRAPHY: Jerry Won Lee is an Assistant Professor in the departments of English, Anthropology, East Asian Languages & Literatures, and Asian American Studies at the University of California, Irvine. As an interdisciplinary scholar, the overarching goal of his research has been the examination of the cultural politics of globalization, with a particular focus on questions of “language” and “nation,” oftentimes seeking to understand their interrelationships.  In terms of “language,” Dr. Lee focuses on the politics of multilingualism and “global” Englishes from both theoretical-sociolinguistic and pedagogical angles. In terms of “nation,” he has focused on the official and vernacular functions and forms of ethnic identity in the context of and in spaces beyond the rubric of the nation-state. Dr. Lee has published on these topics in a range of journals, including Verge: Studies in Global AsiasInternational Journal of Applied LinguisticsCollege Composition and CommunicationCollege EnglishNational Identities, and Critical Inquiry in Language Studies.

Aja Martinez, Writing Studies, Rhetoric, and Composition