Mapping Language Ideology in New York City by Daniel Kaufman

Zoom Registration Link: https://tinyurl.com/ARC-Seminars

Talk Description:

In this talk, I will present the Digital Map of the Languages of New York, the product of a multi-year collaborative effort based at the Endangered Language Alliance to produce the heretofore most detailed map of linguistic diversity in a megacity. The map, based on Perlin & Kaufman 2019, locates over 640 languages within New York City and includes information about the history of indigenous and threatened language communities throughout the city. With the help of the ARC program, I have expanded on the above work by investigating language ideologies and domains of language use within five of the most multilingual immigrant communities in the city, those of Mexico, Guatemala, Nepal, Indonesia, and the Philippines, with a focus on minoritized and Indigenous language groups. As immigration has been shown to affect indigenous peoples disproportionately in a wide range of countries, it is clear that a holistic approach to conserving global linguistic diversity must address Indigenous people in urban diaspora settings. I will highlight several success stories from New York in which endangered languages have been successfully transmitted to a new generation of learners in the home. I hope that these case studies and the strategies therein can serve as positive examples for communities facing language loss in New York and beyond.

Daniel Kaufman, Assistant Professor of Linguistics at Queens College of the City University of New York

What Was the Detroit Geographical Expedition and What is its Relevance Now?

Join us for a conversation about the Detroit Geographical Expedition and Institute (1968-72), a radical project of community-based collaborative scholar activism and liberatory education, with Gwendolyn Warren, the project’s co-director, and Professor Cindi Katz.

Gwendolyn Warren and Cindi Katz in conversation

CUNY Graduate Center, Room 4102

Join us for a conversation about the Detroit Geographical Expedition and Institute (1968-72), a radical project of community-based collaborative scholar activism and liberatory education, with Gwendolyn Warren, the project’s co-director, and Professor Cindi Katz. As a teenager, Warren shaped many of the DGEI’s mapping projects and was a leader of its extraordinary educational component, which brought hundreds of young people from Detroit to Michigan State University, where they formed a sort of autonomous university. Revolutionary in its implications, and not surprisingly short-lived, the collaboration has had powerful repercussions for generations. While the focus in the current political era is too often on ‘stakeholders,’ relies heavily on the ‘non-profit industrial complex,’ and depends on ‘big data’ for developing policies, the DGEI offers a compelling example of democratizing the intentions, practices, and uses of research.

The event will also feature an activist gallery of community collaborators.

bunge_blockClub

Download a printable PDF flier for the event.

Cosponsored by Public Science Project, Advanced Research Collaborative (ARC), Antipode Foundation, Critical Social and Environmental Psychology Program, the Doctoral Program in Earth and Environmental Sciences and the Center for Human Environments.


The event is free and open to the public. The Graduate Center, CUNY is located on 365 Fifth Ave btwn 34th & 35th.