Anna Babel, Department of Spanish and Portuguese, gives a lecture titled "Not-very-TikTok-Famous: Undoing academic hierarchies and making our work accessible, relevant, and entertaining."
How we talk to people matters. In our profession, we often shroud our work in academic jargon, publish in expensive journals that are typically available only through university libraries, and teach at institutions where tuition and fees are the first and firmest prerequisites to our classes. In my discipline, we teach that all varieties of language are equally logical, expressive, and appropriate at the same time that we “correct” students’ grammar and socialize them into the structures of academic writing.
This is a story about unlearning academic registers of speaking, disrupting my teaching methods, and challenging the received wisdom of what counts as academic writing. I’ll talk about why and how I went about acquiring skills to communicate with students and with the general public in ways that engage and affirm the principles that we preach but sometimes fail to practice.
Inaugural lectures celebrate Arts and Humanities faculty who have been promoted to the rank of professor. All lectures are held in the Faculty Club Grand Lounge from 4-6 p.m. and are preceded by a reception and followed by Q&A and discussion. All lectures are free and open to the public.
The Arts and Humanities Inaugural Lecture Series is sponsored by the College of Arts and Sciences.