Dr. Amir Kalan, Lecture on the Silk Roads
"The Silk Roads as a Reservoir of Complex Language and Literacy Practices: Beyond Western Notions of Translanguaging & Multiliteracies"
Abstract
Over the past few decades, language and literacy researchers in the English-speaking world have theorized several pluralized concepts that aim to broaden our understanding of literacy engagement and language use. Examples of such theories include multiliteracies, multimodality, multilingualism and translanguaging. The research trends representing these concepts are often described as “cutting-edge.” Nevertheless, non-Western communities have long engaged with these pluri, multi and trans forms of literacy. As a rich example of complex non-Western literacy practices, this presentation illustrates some of the intellectual and artistic traditions of the Silk Roads that involve translingual and muti-semiotic textual performances.
Bio
Dr. Amir Kalan is an Assistant Professor of Literacy in the Department of Integrated Studies in Education (DISE) at McGill University. His work aims to create a sociology of literacy that provides insights into cultural, political and power-relational dimensions of linguistic and textual practices. He is particularly interested in studying literacy practices that are organic, unofficial, community-based, plurilingual, and multi-semiotic. His research is often interdisciplinary. In his scholarship, he draws on philosophy, sociology, history, and literary theory to explain organic literacy practices that occur beyond narrow official and institutional categorizations.
