Lecture: William T Young Library Auditorium, 5-6 PM

Reception: William T Young Library Alumni Gallery, 6-7 PM (RSVP Only)

Biography:

Kelly Elizabeth Wright (She/Her/Dr) is an experimental sociolinguist specializing in linguistic discrimination and its institutional outcomes. She identifies as a working class Black Biracial cis woman, an Afrolachian raised in Knoxville, Tennessee. Wright is a scholar-activist, working for linguistic justice outside the academy, and interdisciplinarity inside the academy. She has recently completed an interdisciplinary dissertation on perceptions of Black professionalism which introduces a new method of metalingusitic interviews to sociolinguistic fieldwork and investigates findings directly with sociophonetic experimentation. Her previous research features a machine learning study of lexical racialization in sports journalism and an audit study of linguistic profiling in the housing market. Wright is also an accomplished lexicographer and researcher of profanity.

Abstract:

Dr. Wright will reflect among her peers on key lessons learned during the University of Kentucky MA program in Linguistic Theory and Typology that shaped her research trajectory. Namely, she will highlight moments from Jennifer Cramer’s Research Methods, Kevin McGowan’s Sociophonetics, and Mark Lauersdorf’s Corpus Linguistics that not only shaped Wright into the researcher she is today, but also undergird the more inclusive and representative experimental best practices she advocates for across the discipline. Wright will lead the audience in consideration of what she has found to be the most challenging aspect of language science: the objectification of language data. This talk will end with an active, large group discussion on this central issue of linguistic inquiry and the ways in which we–as a community of experts–can balance approaching empirical validity on one end and radical acceptance on the other.

A recording of the lecture will be posted to this page after the event. 

Dr. Whitehead’s talk will emphasize the significance of centering Black communities and perspectives about whiteness and whitesupremacy in anti-racist work and scholarship. In this talk, he will explore the following questions:

• What is the relationship between whiteness and anti-blackness?Why does this relationship matter?
• What does it mean to center Black communities in how we eventhink about whiteness?
• What does it mean to center Black communities in how we thinkabout the purpose and usefulness of anti-racist work?

Throughout the talk, Dr. Whitehead will draw upon examples from his research on white undergraduate college students and discuss implications for practice.

Dr. Melvin A. Whitehead is an assistant professor of student affairs administration at Binghamton University. His research explores the legacies of racism on U.S. college campuses,with a focus on white college students’ dis/connections with whiteness and anti-blackness. Dr.Whitehead’s work draws upon critical theories and frameworks and centers ways of knowing within Black communities, trauma, healing, and the spirit to complicate the field’s understanding of whiteness on U.S. college campuses.

The International Village Living and Learning Program, in collaboration with the Office of Student Organizations and Activities, is hosting an international film series that is open to the public.