Creole Languages and Caribbean Identities

Readings

Please be sure to print out all class readings from the website—we will be holding a strict “no laptop, no smartphone” policy in class, with occasional exceptions as needed.

SESSIONS	READINGS	SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIALS
1: Course introduction, syllabus overview, introduction of our interdisciplinary approach.	No readings	No supplemental materials
2: What’s “linguistics”? What are “languages”? What are “Creole languages”? What are “identities”? What is a “creolist”? A personal perspective, then a debate among linguists.	Anderson, Stephen R. Chapter 2 in Doctor Dolittle’s Delusion: Animals and the Uniqueness of Human Language. Yale University Press, 2006. ISBN: 9780300115253. Lippi-Green, Rosina. “Preface,” “Introduction: Language Ideology or Science Fiction,” and “Linguistic Facts of Life.” In English with an Accent: Language, Ideology, and Discrimination in the United States. Routledge, 2012. ISBN: 9780415559102. [Preview with Google Books] Roberts, Peter Alan. “Introduction.” Chapter 1 in West Indians and their Language. Cambridge University Press, 2007. ISBN: 9780521696982. Arends, Jacques, and Pieter Muysken. “The Socio-Historical Background of Creoles.” In Pidgins and Creoles: An Introduction. Edited by Norval Smith. Benjamins, 2001. ISBN: 9781556191701. Chaudenson, Robert. Creolization of Language and Culture. Routledge, 2001. ISBN: 9780415145930. Brotz, Howard, ed. “The Claims of the Negro Ethnologically Considered.” In Negro Social and Political Thought, 1850–1920: Representative Texts. Basic Books, 1966.	Louise Bennet reading: “Miss Lou (Part 3) JAMAICA LANGUAGE.” YouTube. “M. NourbeSe Philip reads ‘Discourse on the Logic of Language’ from She Tries Her Tongue.” YouTube. Neyfakh, Leon. “The Power of Creole,” Boston Globe, July 24, 2011.
3: Creole languages as “unthinkable” languages—until we become #Woke (i.e., truly literate)	Axel, Brian Keith. “Culture on the Edges: Caribbean Creolization in Historical Context.” In From the Margins: Historical Anthropology and its Futures. Duke University Press Books, 2002. ISBN: 9780822328889. [Preview with Google Books] Roberts, Peter Alan. Chapter 5 in West Indians and their Language. Cambridge University Press, 2007. ISBN: 9780521696982. Hogan, Patrick Colm, ed. “Creoles.” In The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the Language Sciences. Cambridge University Press, 2014. ISBN: 9781107475908. Freire, Paulo, and Donaldo Macedo. “Literacy and the Pedagogy of Political Empowerment” and “Rethinking Literacy A Dialogue.” In Literacy: Reading the Word and the World. Praeger, 1987. ISBN: 9780897891264. [Preview with Google Books]	No supplemental materials
4: Haiti: An example of unthinkable (r)evolution	Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen Code Noir “The Other Revolution: Haiti 1789-1804.” Exhibition at John Carter Brown Library, 2014. Documentary narrated by Edwidge Danticat: “PBS Egalité for All: Toussaint Louverture and the Haitian Revolution (2009).” YouTube. Bender, Thomas, and Laurent Dubois, eds. “A Season of Revolutions: The United States, France and Haiti.” In Revolution!: The Atlantic World Reborn. Giles, 2011. ISBN: 9781904832942. Dubois, Laurent. “Introduction” and “Independence.” In Haiti: The Aftershocks of History. Metropolitan Books, 2012. ISBN: 9780805093353. [Preview with Google Books] Trouillot, Michel-Rolph. “An Unthinkable History: The Haitian Revolution as a Non-Event.” In Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History. Beacon Press, 1996.	Jenson, Deborah. “Dessalines’s American Proclamations of the Haitian Independence.” (PDF). Journal of Haitian Studies 15, no. 1/2 (2009): 72–102. Haitian Constitution of 1805
5: Building frontiers with language: Edwidge Danticat’s The Farming of Bones	Achebe, Chinua. “The African Writer and the English Language.” In Morning Yet on Creation Day: Essays. Anchor Press, 1975. ISBN: 9780385017039. Leipold, Jimmy. “Frontiers: Haiti and The Dominican Republic.” 2002. Voicing silenced histories Edwidge Danticat. Chapters 1–13 in The Farming of Bones. Soho Press, 2013. ISBN: 9781616953492. Translating the oral into the literary ———. Chapters 14–26 in The Farming of Bones. Soho Press, 2013. ISBN: 9781616953492. “Edwidge Danticat responds to 5 questions.”	On Haiti vs. Dominican Republic struggles “Black in Latin America (Episode 1) Haiti and The Dominican Republic—The Roots of Division.” YouTube. “The Price of Sugar.” YouTube
6: The historical as personal/The personal as historical	———. Chapters 27–end in The Farming of Bones. Soho Press, 2013. ISBN: 9781616953492. Kurlansky, Mark, Julia Alvarez, et al. “In the Dominican Republic, Suddenly Stateless,” Los Angeles Times, November 10, 2013. Dove, Rita. “Parsley.” Poetry Foundation, 1983.	“Speak English!: Racist Revolt As Coca-Cola Airs Multilingual ‘America the Beautiful’ SuperBowl Ad.” Public Shaming, Tumblr, 2014.
7: Race (and class and place) and language evolution in the Americas	Baldwin, James. “If Black English Isn’t a Language, Then Tell Me, What Is?” The Black Scholar 27, no. 1 (1997): 5–6. Mufwene, Salikoko S. Language Evolution: Contact, Competition and Change. Bloomsbury Academic, 2008. ISBN: 9780826493699. [Preview with Google Books] Alim, H. Samy, Geneva Smitherman, et al. “Foreword: Orator-in-Chief,” “Black language and America’s First Black President,” and “Language and Racial Politics in the United States.” In Articulate While Black: Barack Obama, language, and Race in the U.S. Oxford University Press, 2012. ISBN: 9780199812981. [Preview with Google Books] Roberts, Peter Alan. “Creole English.” Chapter 3 in West Indians and their Language. Cambridge University Press, 2007. ISBN: 9780521696982.	No supplemental materials
8: Class (and race) in the study of language evolution in the Americas—focus on the US	Ferguson, Charles Albert, Edward Finegan, et al., eds. “African American English” and “Ebonics and its Controversy.” In Language in the USA: Themes for the Twenty-First Century. Cambridge University Press, 2004. ISBN: 9780521777476. [Preview with Google Books] Rickford, John R., and Sharese King. “Language and Linguistics on Trial: Hearing Rachel Jeantel (and Other Vernacular Speakers) in the Courtroom and Beyond.” Language 92, no. 4 (2016): 948–88. Bolotnikova, Marina. “Rachel Jeantel’s English is English—it’s Just Not Your English.” July 4, 2013. Makoni, Sinfree. Black Linguistics: Language, Society, and Politics in Africa and the Americas. Routledge, 2003. ISBN: 9780415261388.	American Tongues: A film about the way we talk. YouTube playlist. John Rickford’s “Stanford Open Office Hours” video (YouTube) on the Trayvon Martin trial and the impact of linguistic prejudice on social justice Public service announcement videos about linguistic profiling (not available for OCW)
9: Are we what we speak? Relating language to issues of identity, (self-)identification, (mis-)identification, etc.	Wassink, Alicia Beckford. “Historic Low Prestige and Seeds of Change: Attitudes toward Jamaican Creole.” Language in Society 28, no. 1 (1999): 57–92. Lippi-Green, Rosina. “The Myth of Non-Accent,” “The Standard Language Myth,” “Language Subordination,” and “Teaching Children How to Discriminate.” In English With an Accent: Language, Ideology, and Discrimination in the United States. Routledge, 2012. ISBN: 9780415559102. Alim, H. Samy, and Geneva Smitherman. “Change the Game: Language, Education and the Cruel Fallout of Racism.” In Articulate While Black: Barack Obama, Language, and Race in the U.S. Oxford University Press, 2012. ISBN: 9780199812981. [Preview with Google Books] Recommended Roberts, Peter A. “Societies in the Raw: From Diversity to Corruption” and “The Development of National Identities in Hispaniola, Cuba and Peurto Rico.” In Roots of Caribbean identity. Cambridge University Press, 2008. ISBN: 9780521727457.	Letters to the editors of the Jamaica Gleaner about the viability of Jamaica Creole (“Patwa”)
10: The politics of language and (mis)education in Haiti	Schieffelin, Bambi B., and Rachelle Charlier Doucet. “The “Real” Haitian Creole: Ideology, Metalinguistics, and Orthographic Choice.” American Ethnologist 21, no. 1 (1994): 176–200. DeGraff, Michel, and Molly Ruggles. “A Creole Solution for Haiti’s Woes,” The New York Times, August 1, 2014. DeGraff, Michel. “Linguists’ most dangerous myth: The fallacy of Creole Exceptionalism.” (PDF) Language in Society 34 (2005): 533–591. ———. “Linguistic equality is a precondition to political and economic equity.” Boston Review, May 9, 2016. ———. “Haiti’s ‘linguistic apartheid’ violates human rights and hampers economic development.” Open Global Rights, January 31, 2017.	No supplemental materials
11: The politics of language and (mis)education in the Caribbean and beyond	Roberts, Peter A. “English language and literacy” and “The legacy of colonial literacy in the West Indies.” Chapters 9 and 10 in From Oral to Literate Culture: Colonial Experience in the English West Indies. University of the West Indies Press, 2000. ISBN: 9789766400378. Devonish, Hubert. “Kingston, Jamaica: Arawak.” In Language and Liberation: Creole Language Politics in the Caribbean. Arawak Publications, 2007. ISBN: 9789768189264. Freire, Paulo, and Donaldo Macedo. “The Illiteracy of Literacy in the United States” and “Literacy and Critical Pedagogy.” In Literacy: Reading the Word and the World. Praeger, 1987. ISBN: 9780897891264. [Preview with Google Books]	No supplemental materials
12: The other “unthinkable”: Vodou as religion	Pilkey, Dave. Ricky Ricotta’s Giant Robot vs. the Voodoo Vultures from Venus. Blue Sky Press, 2001. ISBN: 9780439236249. Mintz, Sidney, and Michel-Rolph Trouillot. “The Social History of Haitian Vodou.” In Sacred Arts of Haitian Vodou. Edited by D. Cosentino. University of California Museum, 1995. ISBN: 9780930741471.  Brown, Karen McCarthy. “Alourdes: A case study of moral leadership in Haitian Vodou.” In Saints and Virtues. University of California Press, 1987. ISBN: 9780520061637.	No supplemental materials
13: Un-making community: Colonialism and neo-colonialism	Bender, Thomas, and Laurent Dubois, eds. “The 1804 Haitian Revolution.” In Revolution! The Atlantic World Reborn. Giles, 2011. ISBN: 9781904832942. Chomsky, Noam. “The Tragedy of Haiti.” In Year 501: The Conquest Continues. South End Press, 1999. ISBN: 9780896084452. Doucet, Fabienne. “Arrested Development: How Lack of Will Cripples Educational Reform in Haiti.” Journal of Haitian Studies 18, no. 1 (2012): 120–50.	Roberts, Peter A. “Creolisation, Nativisation and Enlightenment.” In Roots of Caribbean Identity: Language, Race, and Ecology. Cambridge University Press, 2008. ISBN: 9780521727457.
14: Technology, language and new modes of story telling—a new “Creole” world the world over?	Walcott, Derek. “The Antilles: Fragments of Epic Memory.” Nobel Prize in Literature Lecture, 1992. Chamberlin, J. Edward. Come Back to Me My Language: Poetry and the West Indies. University of Illinois Press, 1993. ISBN: 9780252062971. [Preview with Google Books] Devonish, Hubert. “Kingston, Jamaica: Arawak.” In Language and Liberation: Creole Language Politics in the Caribbean. Arawak Publications, 2007. ISBN: 9789768189264.	Michel DeGraff and Kendy Vérilus. “Kreyol-based cyberlearning for a new perspective on the teaching of STEM in local languages.” 2015 NSF Video Showcase.