New Books in Language Marshall Poe

The Politics of Naming the Armenian Genocide: Language, History and 'Medz Yeghern' (Bloomsbury, 2021) explores the genealogy of the concept of 'Medz Yeghern' ('Great Crime'), the Armenian term for the mass murder and ethnic cleansing of the Armenian ethno-religious group in the Ottoman Empire between the years 1915-1923. 
Widely accepted by historians as one of the classical cases of genocide in the 20th century, ascribing the right definition to the crime has been a source of contention and controversy in international politics. Vartan Matiossian here draws upon extensive research based on Armenian sources, neglected in much of the current historiography, as well as other European languages in order to trace the development of the concepts pertaining to mass killing and genocide of Armenians from the ancient to the modern periods. Beginning with an analysis of the term itself, he shows how the politics of its use evolved as Armenians struggled for international recognition of the crime after 1945, in the face of Turkish protest. Taking a combined historical, philological, literary and political perspective, the book is an insightful exploration of the politics of naming a catastrophic historical event, and the competitive nature of national collective memories.
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An Introduction to Language and Social Justice: What Is, What Has Been, and What Could Be (Routledge, 2023) is designed to provide the who, what, where, when, why, and how of the intersections of language, inequality, and social justice in North America, using the applied linguistic anthropology (ALA) framework. Written in accessible language and at a level equally legible for advanced undergraduate and graduate students, this text connects theory and practice by sketching out relevant historical background, introducing theoretical and conceptual underpinnings, illustrating with case studies, discussing a wide range of key issues, and explaining research methodologies. 
Using a general-to-specialized content structure, the expert authors then show readers how to apply these principles and lessons in communities in the real world, to become advocates and change agents in the realm of language and social justice. With an array of useful pedagogical resources and practical tools including discussion questions and activities, reflections and vignettes, further reading and a glossary, along with additional online resources for instructors, this is the essential text for students from multiple perspectives across linguistics, applied linguistics, linguistic anthropology, and beyond.
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The Rise of English: Global Politics and the Power of Language, which has just been reissued in paperback by Oxford University Press, with a new preface.
The Rise of English charts the spread of English as the dominant lingua franca worldwide. The book explores the wide-ranging economic and political effects of English. It examines both the good and harm that English can cause as it increases economic opportunity for some but sidelines others. Overall, the book argues that English can function beneficially as a key component of multilingual ecologies worldwide.
In the conversation, we explore how the dominance of English has become more contested since the Covid-19 pandemic, particularly in higher education and global knowledge production.
For additional resources, show notes, and transcripts, go here.
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What are the histories, constraints, and possibilities of language in relation to bodies, origins, land, colonialism, gender, war, displacement, desire, and migration? Moving across genres, memories, belongings, and borders, River in an Ocean: Essays on Translation (Trace Press, 2023) invites readers to consider translation as a form of ethical and political love—one that requires attentive regard of an other and a making and unmaking of self. “River in an Ocean, as the title implies, blurs borders between self and others, between translators and their subjects, inscribing the process of translation…on the page.” – Ibrahim Fawzy, Poetry Birmingham Literary Journal. 
In this episode, Ibrahim and Nuzhat Abbas discuss translation as “decolonial feminist work” and the process of editing this volume, which includes essays by poets, writers, and translators. 
Ibrahim Fawzy is a literary translator and academic based in Egypt. His interests include translation studies, Arabic literature, ecocriticism, and disability studies.
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Listen to Episode No.10 of All We Mean, a Special Focus of this podcast. All We Mean is an ongoing discussion and debate about how we mean and why. The guests on today's episode are Bill Cope and Mary Kalantzis, professors at the University of Illinois, and as well, John Jones, assistant professor at SUNY Cortland. In this episode of the Focus, our topic is Image as Form in a Transpositional Grammar: The Example of Photography.
Bill Cope : "Every time a new medium turns up, it does new things. So, in the case of photography — our example medium today — its form is Image, and in our grammar, the Image is the human's way of representing the world on a two-dimensional plane. Now, of course, the Image has been around for a very long time, but when photography develops, it adds new things to the Image — it makes the Image much more accessible. You know, how many zillions of photographs are taken every day now, and most of them pushed across space and time via the Internet, right? So we ask, what does that massification of the ability to create the Image do?"
Links

Cartier-Bresson, The Decisive Image

Muybridge's Moving Images

Robert Fielding


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Do translation theorists observe what translators do and develop theories based on that? Do translators gain ideas and tools from studying theories? Or does it go both ways? Or is it neither, and translation scholars are completely separated from practising translators? 
B. J. Woodstein’s Translation Theory for the Practicing Literary Translator (Anthem Press, 2024) is an eclectic discussion of a handful of translation theories and their potential impact on literary translation practitioners. It explores a range of theoretical ideas, mostly from literary studies or translation studies, but with clear links to other fields, such as cultural studies and philosophy. 
In this episode, Ibrahim Fawzy and B.J. Woodstein talk everything translation. They discuss fidelity, equivalence, distance, and (in)visibility, identity, power, ethics, and more. 
Ibrahim Fawzy is a literary translator and academic based in Egypt. His interests include translation studies, Arabic literature, ecocriticism, and disability studies.
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