Language and Culture in the Americanist Tradition

In this seminar we will use a comparative approach to study indigenous languages and community-academy relations.

Through the lens of American Anthropology, Linguistics, and Folklore spanning the late 19th to mid-late twentieth centuries, we will listen to speakers of indigenous, creole and other minority languages as they addressed themselves to researchers and wider audiences. We will trace the history of language and culture in the Americanist Tradition, with particular attention paid to ethnolinguistic text collections, which we will analyze for expressions of verbal artistry, rhetorical address, and political voice.