Political education and American studies
With surges of authoritarian movements in both Europe and the United States, political education is a prominent and urgent topic. Given the long-held assumption in the United States that political education is not only, perhaps not even primarily, about theories of governance but rather about practices, habits, and a way of living together – in other words: a phenomenon of culture – the scholarship collected in this volume looks at novels and essays, caricatures and comics, zines and TV series, podcasts and LPs to examine political issues their creators wanted to educate their audience about. These include, for instance, copyright law, trade unions and economic mechanisms, anti-racism, questions of leadership, and climate change.
What stands out is the relative insignificance of the nation state and perhaps democracy as useful frameworks; instead, the focus is on popular media, on contributing to building cultural memories, and frequently on pedagogy itself.
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Whose Language Is English?
An exhilarating new account of the English language, from British colonialism to the age of social media, emphasizing dynamism and democratization
Whose language is English? Although we often think of it as native to one place, today there are many Englishes. About seventy-five countries are now using English as their official or first language, and the number of people speaking it around the world continues to rise. But the makeup of the English-speaking population is changing. The proportion of speakers for whom English is a first language, for instance, is decreasing, due to the explosion in popularity of English as a second language.
In this ambitious book, Jieun Kiaer explores the lives of English words in the twenty-first century, when the creation and use of language has become an increasingly dynamic, interactive, and diverse process in which ordinary people have taken leading roles—offering such coinages as “flexitarian,” “MeToo,” “glow up,” and “shitizen” to “No sabo kids” and beyond. As English language grows ever more diverse, Kiaer believes, we need a paradigm shift. We must acknowledge that all varieties of English are languages in their own right when they are used by a community of speakers. English is a language that belongs to everyone.
Considering the effects of social media, the Covid-19 pandemic, virtual work, globalization, and artificial intelligence, Kiaer paints a compelling portrait of a diffuse, rapidly evolving language characterized by creativity and democratization.
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