Derrida and Questions of Difference

Picture this: you and your friends are grabbing burgers and you overhear someone order a pop. You instantly get the urge to correct them because soda is the proper word you were taught. Later, the server brings the coke they ordered, which further increases your urge to intervene because they actually ordered Sprite. After all, soda is the correct word. Or is it? Which word is correct? Actually, they all are.

Linguistic variation is inherent to all languages and from a linguistic standpoint, all languages are equal. Yet, humans are continuously judged, evaluated, and discriminated against based on how they speak and write in professional, academic, and everyday settings. These seemingly innocuous comments about correctness have harmful effects on people who don’t conform to perceived language standards. As a result, various forms of discrimination and policies that exist continue to marginalize people due to misinformation and in some cases, disinformation. In this class, we will examine the intersections of language, ideology, and discrimination in everyday, educational, and professional settings while developing our research practices.

Classes will be facilitated through weekly reading discussions and discourse analysis of data (i.e., data sessions) in small and whole group activities. Readings will address the intersections of language and discrimination, such as accentism, racialization, language subordination, and social identities. The class will provide foundational concepts from applied linguistics and related fields, such as sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology. The course is also focused on developing your research literacies and project management skills. You will learn how to develop and carry out a project, evaluate the credibility of information, and various types of data. Labs will be used to create space for data sessions and peer-reviews.

Through discourse analysis, you will apply concepts you learned in class to develop your understanding of linguistic diversity and language related issues. Projects can utilize print and digital media to address, for instance, monolingual policies and their impact in educational or workplace settings, intersections of language and gender or race, and various forms of linguistic discrimination in the US or other contexts.

There are no prerequisites and this course is suitable for students who are curious about language, discourse, social issues, as well as research. Students will be evaluated based on completed assignments, such as readings and other homework, research projects, peer-review, and overall class contributions, including lab sessions. You must be prepared to reflect on implicit biases and perceptions of language and rethink how you approach and conceptualize research. This course meets both the writing requirement and HS requirement as it develops genre knowledge, rhetorical awareness, understanding of writing as dynamic and iterative processes, and research literacies grounded in social sciences.

Picture this: you and your friends are grabbing burgers and you overhear someone order a pop. You instantly get the urge to correct them because soda is the proper word you were taught. Later, the server brings the coke they ordered, which further increases your urge to intervene because they actually ordered Sprite. After all, soda is the correct word. Or is it? Which word is correct? Actually, they all are.

Linguistic variation is inherent to all languages and from a linguistic standpoint, all languages are equal. Yet, humans are continuously judged, evaluated, and discriminated against based on how they speak and write in professional, academic, and everyday settings. These seemingly innocuous comments about correctness have harmful effects on people who don’t conform to perceived language standards. As a result, various forms of discrimination and policies that exist continue to marginalize people due to misinformation and in some cases, disinformation. In this class, we will examine the intersections of language, ideology, and discrimination in everyday, educational, and professional settings while developing our research practices.

Classes will be facilitated through weekly reading discussions and discourse analysis of data (i.e., data sessions) in small and whole group activities. Readings will address the intersections of language and discrimination, such as accentism, racialization, language subordination, and social identities. The class will provide foundational concepts from applied linguistics and related fields, such as sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology. The course is also focused on developing your research literacies and project management skills. You will learn how to develop and carry out a project, evaluate the credibility of information, and various types of data. Labs will be used to create space for data sessions and peer-reviews.

Through discourse analysis, you will apply concepts you learned in class to develop your understanding of linguistic diversity and language related issues. Projects can utilize print and digital media to address, for instance, monolingual policies and their impact in educational or workplace settings, intersections of language and gender or race, and various forms of linguistic discrimination in the US or other contexts.

There are no prerequisites and this course is suitable for students who are curious about language, discourse, social issues, as well as research. Students will be evaluated based on completed assignments, such as readings and other homework, research projects, peer-review, and overall class contributions, including lab sessions. You must be prepared to reflect on implicit biases and perceptions of language and rethink how you approach and conceptualize research. This course meets both the writing requirement and HS requirement as it develops genre knowledge, rhetorical awareness, understanding of writing as dynamic and iterative processes, and research literacies grounded in social sciences.

This course is designed for students planning to teach in schools whether in Maine or outside of the United States. Culturally sustaining/revitalizing education (CSRE) builds on the aims, values, insights, and practices of anti-racist education, culturally relevant pedagogy, culturally responsive teaching, culturally sustaining/revitalizing pedagogy, decolonizing education, global education, intercultural education, and multicultural education. In particular, it aims to contextualize education in the history of colonization, land theft, slavery, the continued struggle for sovereignty and self-determination of native tribes and First Nations, and calls for wider community accountability. This educational approach challenges deficit mindsets and structures that undergird policies and practices that widen the opportunity gap and equitable access to basic human and civil rights and impede educational access for sustaining and revitalizing cultures that settler colonialism has attempted to eliminate, assimilate, or marginalize. Students will practice asset-based and growth mindsets to gain an understanding of the relationship between CSRE and respect for tribal sovereignty and support of contemporary struggles for tribal continuity and resistance to cultural genocide and epistemicide. The course also opens a dialogue on the applicability of CRSE for immigrant, refugee, and asylum-seeking students whose relationship to their new place of residence may be tenuous at best and whose heritage languages and cultures are also endangered as a result of first- to second-generation assimilation in their adopted communities. Students will gain an understanding of conceptual frameworks, knowledge of empirical studies documenting outcomes and impacts of these approaches, and skills in ethically and effectively teaching indigenous, immigrant, and other culturally and linguistically diverse learners. For students seeking Maine teaching endorsements, this course will prepare them to implement LD291 requiring Maine educators to teach Wabanaki history and culture. Students will learn through field trips, guest speakers, films, discussions, critical exploration and reflection, independent research, observation/fieldwork/practicum, and peer teaching. Evaluation will include artifacts to be incorporated into a teaching portfolio: a lesson plan, teaching video, self-assessment, assessment of PK-12 student work, and communication with families and community members. Although there are no prerequisites, the following are recommended; Learning and/or proficiency in a language other than English; a psychology, sociology, or anthropology course; and/or a prior education course.

This course is designed for students planning to teach in schools whether in Maine or outside of the United States. Culturally sustaining/revitalizing education (CSRE) builds on the aims, values, insights, and practices of anti-racist education, culturally relevant pedagogy, culturally responsive teaching, culturally sustaining/revitalizing pedagogy, decolonizing education, global education, intercultural education, and multicultural education. In particular, it aims to contextualize education in the history of colonization, land theft, slavery, the continued struggle for sovereignty and self-determination of native tribes and First Nations, and calls for wider community accountability. This educational approach challenges deficit mindsets and structures that undergird policies and practices that widen the opportunity gap and equitable access to basic human and civil rights and impede educational access for sustaining and revitalizing cultures that settler colonialism has attempted to eliminate, assimilate, or marginalize. Students will practice asset-based and growth mindsets to gain an understanding of the relationship between CSRE and respect for tribal sovereignty and support of contemporary struggles for tribal continuity and resistance to cultural genocide and epistemicide. The course also opens a dialogue on the applicability of CRSE for immigrant, refugee, and asylum-seeking students whose relationship to their new place of residence may be tenuous at best and whose heritage languages and cultures are also endangered as a result of first- to second-generation assimilation in their adopted communities. Students will gain an understanding of conceptual frameworks, knowledge of empirical studies documenting outcomes and impacts of these approaches, and skills in ethically and effectively teaching indigenous, immigrant, and other culturally and linguistically diverse learners. For students seeking Maine teaching endorsements, this course will prepare them to implement LD291 requiring Maine educators to teach Wabanaki history and culture. Students will learn through field trips, guest speakers, films, discussions, critical exploration and reflection, independent research, observation/fieldwork/practicum, and peer teaching. Evaluation will include artifacts to be incorporated into a teaching portfolio: a lesson plan, teaching video, self-assessment, assessment of PK-12 student work, and communication with families and community members. Although there are no prerequisites, the following are recommended; Learning and/or proficiency in a language other than English; a psychology, sociology, or anthropology course; and/or a prior education course.

Algerian Jewish philosopher, Jacques Derrida (1930-2004), one of the most widely translated French philosophers of the 20th century, developed a body of work often referred to as "deconstruction." Derrida’s oeuvre has influenced multiple fields and disciplines, including Literature, Anthropology, Philosophy, Postcolonial Studies, Psychoanalysis and Feminist Theory. This course will track some of the ways in which Derrida engaged with ideas of difference, through a focus on questions his work poses for understandings of the human. The class will engage with Derrida’s archive through reading some of his early work, including essays and interviews about the status of writing and speech, language, and philosophy, and then move through his later work, including his increasing focus on explicitly political topics such as the death Peñalty, the animal, sovereignty, and war. Although the texts we read will be primarily Derrida’s own writing, we will also read authors who respond to and build on Derrida’s thought. These may include Gayatri Spivak, Ranjana Khanna, Samir Haddad, Peggy Kamuf, and Michael Naas, as well as texts by those with whom Derrida was in dialogue, such as Sigmund Freud, Hélène Cixous, Michel Foucault, Sarah Kofman, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Karl Marx, Martin Heidegger and Emmanuel Levinas. As we move through Derrida’s texts and those informed by them, we will pay particular attention to questions about sexual difference, colonialism, the human, death in relation to life, and representation. Students will be evaluated on participation in seminar discussions, weekly reading responses, a mid-term paper and final paper. There are no prerequisites for this course, but students will be expected to conduct close readings of challenging texts. Students are encouraged to contact the professor with any questions about the course and whether it is a good fit for them.

This course will explore heroines from two Hindu epics, Mahabharata and Ramayana, alongside the Greek mythological figures Ariadne, Medusa, Circe, and Galatea. Both sets of heroines have generated deeply rooted cultural archetypes. Central to the upbringing of more than half of the Indian population through comic books, TV shows, movies, and the like, the Hindu epics have set the standard for what an ideal Hindu woman should be, bolstering the patriarchal system in the name of religion and culture. Much like Helen of Troy, “the face that launched a thousand ships” in Greek mythology, some of these women have been the cause of wars of “epic proportions.” Others have become infamous archetypes for women’s witchiness and trouble-making, especially in Greek epics Western authors have retold. Myths of their beauty or its opposite have long been part of these narratives, but do we hear them speak? What do we know about the power they yield? Epics and mythologies have been unable to provide us with concrete answers.

Therefore, we will turn to female authors like Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, Kavita Kané, Volga, and Vaishnavi Patel for the Hindu epics and Madeline Miller, Jennifer Saint, and Rosie Hewlett for the Greek tales. These authors have created spaces where women’s voices can be heard and analyzed, where archetypal and epic types can be studied as multifaceted humans. We’ll not only read their novels closely but also supplement their work with feminist theory and short videos. Eventually, we’ll trace how these epics stay relevant with regard to the construction of gender and sexuality in the modern Indian and Western world.

Students will be evaluated based on class participation, an oral presentation, response posts, final paper, and a multimodal project. This class will be good for students who are interested in reading feminist literature and theory and understanding the enduring power of epics and myths as well as the contemporary feminist purpose in giving their heroines voice. Reading the Indian epics alongside the Greek tales will provide an opportunity for ample comparison of patriarchal systems and how they developed in representative cultures from the East and West.