“Language and Migration: Experience and Memory” April 19, 2021 - May 1, 2021
Please click on a paper title to read the abstract.
Monday April 19, 10:00 am - 1:00 pm ET
10:00 am - 10:15 am Welcome Address
Humphrey Tonkin, Chair, NGO Committee on Language and Languages
Esther Schor, Co-Director, The Migration Lab, Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies (PIIRS)
10:15 am - 11:15 am Keynote Address
Sarah Dryden-Peterson, Associate Professor of Education, Harvard Graduate School of Education
Language, Migration, and Education: Threading Past, Present, and Future-Building
11:30 am - 1:00 pm Session 1: Education
Chair, Rosemary Salomone, St. John’s University School of Law
Tony Capstick, Lecturer in Applied Linguistics, University of Reading, UK
Carol Benson, Associate Professor, Teachers College, Columbia University; Maria Serio, M.A. Candidate, International and Comparative Education, Columbia University; and Jon Kwok, M.A. Candidate, International and Comparative Education, Columbia University
Celia Reddick, Ph.D. Candidate, Harvard University
Mohammad Thalgi, Associate Professor, Yarmouk University, Jordan; and Ayat Nashwan, Sociology and Social Work Department, Yarmouk University, Jordan
Language education problems related to Syrian refugees’ education in Turkey and Jordan
Wednesday April 21, 10:00 am - 1:15 pm ET
10:00 am - 11:30 am Session 2: Linguistic Human Rights
Chair, Lisa Atalianis, Birkbeck, University of London
Eve Haque, Associate Professor, Language, Literatures, and Linguistics, York University
Official and Non-Official Language Rights in Canada
Yael Peled, Research Associate, Institute for Health and Social Policy, McGill University
Multilingual Selfhood and the Political Ethics of a Linguistic In-Betweenness
Timothy Reagan, Professor of Applied Linguistics, School of Learning and Teaching, University of Maine
Identifying and Responding to Linguicism: Toward a Conceptual Model
11:45 am - 1:15 pm Session 3: Voices
Chair, Sarah Chihaya, Princeton University
Grace Tran, Ph.D. Candidate, Centre for Criminology and Sociolegal Studies, University of Toronto
Laila Omar, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Sociology, University of Toronto
Briana Nichols, Ph.D. Candidate, Departments of Anthropology and Education, University of Pennsylvania
No Son Libres Allí / They Are Not Free There
Aleksandra Olszewska, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Center for Multilingualism in Society across the Lifespan (MultiLing), University of Oslo, Norway
Multilingual Identities in Refugee-background Students’ Voices: Counter-stories from Poland
Leonie Schulte, Ph.D. Candidate, Linguistic Anthropology, University of Oxford, UK
The German You Need to Know: Language Learning and Temporal Uncertainty Among Newcomers in Berlin
Friday April 23, 10:00 am - 1:15 pm ET
10:00 am - 11:30 am Session 4: Interpretation and Translation
Chair, Joel Gomez, President, Center for Applied Linguistics
Morven Beaton-Thome, Professor for the Theory and Practice of Interpreting (English), University of Applied Sciences, Cologne, Germany
Maria Bo, Assistant Professor in the English, Comparative Literature, and Linguistics Department, California State University Fullerton
Created Equal? Translating Linguistic Rights and the False Equivalents of Language Justice
Anisa Rahim, Civil Rights Lawyer, National Language Access Advocates Network (N-LAAN)
Language Justice: an evolving framework for fundamental language rights and equal access
Dolores Inés Casillas, Associate Professor, Department of Chicano and Chicana Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara
Listening to Migration on U.S. Spanish-Language Radio
11:45 am - 1:15 pm Session 5: Media and Representation
Chair, Paul Nadal, Princeton University
Argyro Nicolaou, Postdoctoral Fellow, Seeger Center for Hellenic Studies, Princeton University
Documenting Migration in Contemporary Video Art: Bouchra Khalili's Mapping Journey Project
Max Cavitch, Associate Professor, Department of English, University of Pennsylvania
Somita Sabeti, M.A. Candidate, Erasmus Mundus Joint Master’s Degree; Visiting Research Fellow, Migration Research Center (MiReKoc), Koç University, Istanbul, Turkey
Rahul Bjørn Parson, Assistant Professor of Hindi, Department of South and Southeast Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley
Seizing the Telling: Deterritorialized Hindi and Urdu Literature in Kolkata
Jeremiah Lockwood, Stanford Graduate School of Education, Stanford University
A tribute to Jewlia Eisenberg
Wednesday April 28, 10:00 am - 1:15 pm ET
10:00 am - 11:30 am Session 6: Asylum Seekers/Refugees
Chair, Patricia Fernández-Kelly, Princeton University
Tommaso Manfredini, Lecturer, Department of French and the Institute for Comparative Literature and Society, Columbia University
Ketli? Kori? or Keli? A Literary Archaeology of an Asylum Narrative, Italy, 2019
Forough Ramezankhah, Lecturer, School of Law, Keele University, UK
Beyond language: the role of memory and experience in the presentation of asylum claims
Shahzaman Haque, Associate Professor of Urdu, Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales, Paris, France
Cosette Maiky, International Expert on Governance, United Nations Development Programme
Tatyana Scheila Friedrich, Visiting Fellow, Fordham University; Professor of Private International Law and Migration and Refugee Law, UFPR – Feder University of Paraná, Brazil; and Bruna Ruano, Professor, UFPR – Feder University of Paraná, Brazil
11:45 am - 1:15 pm Session 7: Migrants and the State
Chair, Stephen Macedo, Princeton University
Jean-Pierre Gauci, Arthur Watts Senior Research Fellow in Public International Law and Director of Teaching and Training at the British Institute of International and Comparative Law, London, UK
From Law to Policy: Language, Categorisations, and Migrant Rights
Francisco Robles, Assistant Professor, Department of English, University of Notre Dame
Ofelia Zepeda’s Poetic Languages of Creation and Inhabitation
Zrinka Bralo, Chief Executive, Migrants Organise, London, UK
Xenophobic Language: the Media, the State, and Public Policy in the UK
William Allen, Supernumerary Teaching Fellow in Politics, St John’s College, University of Oxford, UK; Researcher, Centre on Migration, Policy, and Society (COMPAS)
Language about Migration and State Policymaking: Learning from the UK’s “Net Migration” Target
Clara Beccaro, M.A. Candidate, Department of Anthropology, The New School for Social Research
The Discursive Production of Worthiness: Queer Refugees and the French Asylum Procedure
Friday April 30, 7:30 pm - 8:45 pm ET
A reading by Princeton Creative Writing Faculty: Jhumpa Lahiri, Yiyun Li, Aleksandar Hemon
Introduced by Prof. Sandra Bermann, Princeton University
Jhumpa Lahiri
Jhumpa Lahiri received the Pulitzer Prize in 2000 for Interpreter of Maladies, her debut story collection. She is also the author of The Namesake, Unaccustomed Earth, and The Lowland, a finalist for both the Man Booker prize and the National Book Award in fiction. Lahiri is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships, including the PEN/Hemingway Award, the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story, the Addison Metcalf Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Vallombrosa Von Rezzori Prize, the Asian American Literary Award, the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. She was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and letters in 2012. In 2014, she was awarded a National Humanities Medal, and in 2019 she was named a Commander of Italian Republic.
Lahiri’s fifth book was a collection of essays she wrote in Italian while living in Rome, titled In Altre Parole (In Other Words). Lahiri continues to write and publish in Italian (The Clothing of Books, 2016, was originally published in Italian) and translate both her own work and the work of others from Italian to English. Her translation of Domenico Starnone’s novel Trick was published by Europa Editions in March 2018 and received the John Florio Prize from the Society of Authors. She also translated Starnone’s novel Ties, which was named a New York Times Notable Book and Best Foreign Novel by the Times of London in 2017. Her novel written in Italian, Dove mi trovo, was published in Italy in Fall 2018 and will be released, in Lahiri's own translation, as Whereabouts in May 2020. The Penguin Classics Book of Italian Short Stories, edited and introduced by Lahiri, with selected translations, was published in Spring 2019.
Yiyun Li
Yiyun Li is the author of six books, including two story collections, A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, Gold Boy, Emerald Girl, three novels, The Vagrants, Kinder Than Solitude, Where Reasons End, and an essay collection, Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life. Her work has been translated into more than twenty languages.
Li was named a MacArthur Foundation Fellow in 2010, and was chosen by The New Yorker as one of the 20 fiction writers under 40 to watch. Awards for Li’s work include: Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award, PEN/Hemingway Award, the Guardian First Book Award, Asian American Literary Award for fiction, Benjamin H. Dank Award from American Academy of Arts and Letters, Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award, and others. “A Thousand Years of Good Prayers,” an independent film directed by Wayne Wang and adapted by Li from her short story, was the winner of Golden Shell for best film, 55th San Sebastian International Film Festival.
Aleksandar Hemon
Aleksandar Hemon is the author of The Lazarus Project, which was a finalist for the 2008 National Book Award and National Book Critics Circle Award, and three collections of short stories: The Question of Bruno; Nowhere Man, which was also a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award; and Love and Obstacles. His other works include two books of nonfiction, My Parents: An Introduction and The Book of My Lives, the novel The Making of Zombie Wars, journalism, screenplays, and content for the Netflix original show Sense8. Born in Sarajevo, Hemon visited Chicago in 1992, intending to stay for a matter of months. While he was there, Sarajevo came under siege, and he was unable to return home. Hemon wrote his first story in English in 1995. He was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2003 and a “genius grant” from the MacArthur Foundation in 2004. Hemon has taught at Northwestern University and New York University.
Saturday May 1, 12:00 pm - 1:30 pm ET
12:00 pm - 12:15 pm Introduction by Prof. Anne Cheng, Princeton University
12:15 pm - 1:15 pm Keynote Address
Viet Thanh Nguyen, Aerol Arnold Professor of English, University of Southern California, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for The Sympathizer
Language and Migration: From Representation to Decolonization