events
> what is the Trace Foundation lecture series?
> upcoming lecture series event
> lecture series archive
> lecture proceedings
lecture series
Speaker Biographies:
Vitality and Viability of Minority Languages
Arienne Dwyer, Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology, Kansas University
Professor Dwyer’s expertise is in the sociolinguistics of Chinese and Central Asian languages and she has directed several projects to document and archive languages of these regions, including Salar, Kazakh, Uyghur, Mongour, Wutun, Kyrgyz, and also archaic German dialects in Kansas. Professor Dwyer is also particularly interested in developing the technologies to study languages. In addition to developing fonts and interactive CD-ROM programs for Salar and Rio Grande Tewa, she has organized two conferences on language resources and technology: the “Digital Tools Summit in Linguistics” (DTSL) and, with Helen Aristar-Dry, “Towards Interoperability in Language Resources.”
Joshua A. Fishman, Distinguished University Research Professor of Social Sciences, Emeritus, Yeshiva University
Over many decades of research, Dr. Fishman has established himself as one of the leading scholars in sociology of language. His interests include language, religion and ethnicity; sociolinguistics of Yiddish; language planning; and the implementation of bilingual education. Some of his most notable publications include DO NOT Leave Your Language Alone: The Hidden Status Agendas Within Corpus Planning in Language Policy (2006) and Reversing Language Shift: Theory and Practice of Assistance to Threatened Languages (1991). His seminal contributions to the field have been recognized through two honorary volumes and a symposium in his honor. In 2004 Dr. Fishman was awarded the Linguapax Prize.
Trowo Gyaltsen
Senior Lecturer, Barkham Nationalities Normal School, Ngawa Prefecture, Sichuan Province
Trowo Gyaltsen graduated with a degree in philosophy and went on to teach political theory at the Barkham Nationalities Normal School. He is the editor-in-chief of the Tibetan- and Chinese-language journal, Tibetan Regions Education Forum, which explores issues such as Tibetan regions education systems, mother tongue education in bilingual education, and more. He published a collection of essays on philosophy entitled The Allure of the Light of Reason. He has written many important papers that have been influential in Tibetan education practice today.
Joseph Lo Bianco, Professor and Chair, Language and Literacy Education, Graduate School of Education, University of Melbourne
Professor Lo Bianco has served as a consultant on language education policy in over twenty countries, including Sri Lanka, Thailand, the United States, China, Italy, South Africa and the United Kingdom. He is the author of Australia’s first National Policy on Languages, which was established in 1987. Most recently, he has edited several books including Language Learning from the Inside: Learners’ Voices & Public Policy Ambitions, and China and English: Globalization and Dilemmas of Identity. Both his policy contributions and writings have been recognized through numerous awards in Australia and internationally.
Thubten Phuntsok, Senior Professor, Tibetology Institute, Central Nationalities University
Thubten Phuntsok is a prolific scholar of Tibetan Studies with dozens of books and numerous articles published in the fields of Tibetan history, Tibetan medicine, and Tibetan literature, grammar, and poetry. Originally a Tibetan medicine doctor in his hometown of Derge, he has an academic background in archeology and Tibetology. He is currently a professor and researcher in the department of Tibetan Studies at the Central Nationalities University in Beijing, China. He is also the director of the Tibetan Medical Institute and the president of Tibetan AIDS Prevention Association. He has won many national awards for his publications on language, history, religion, and medicine.
Elliot Sperling, Professor, Department of Central Eurasian Studies, Indiana University
Professor Sperling is a leading scholar of Tibetan history with a focus on Sino-Tibetan relations. A laureate of the 1984 MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship, his publications include numerous works examining interethnic relations of the Central Asian region from the early 14th century to the present. Among his published works are essays such as “Tibetan Buddhism, Perceived And Imagined, Along The Ming-Era Sino-Tibetan Frontier,” in Buddhism between Tibet and China (2009), The Tibet-China Conflict: History and Polemics (2004), and “‘Orientalism’ and Aspects of Violence in the Tibetan Tradition,” in Imagining Tibet: Perceptions, Projections, and Fantasies (2001).
> download flyer in pdf
^ back to top
