Dr. Alexandra Jaffe Represents International Anthropology Pilot Project

The CSULB Department of Anthropology’s Dr. Alexandra Jaffe (Linguistics/Anthropology) was recently selected by the President-Elect of the American Anthropological Association (AAA) to represent the Association in a pilot project aimed at increasing collaboration between the AAA, the EASA (European Association of Social Anthropologists), the Canadian Anthropology Society (CASCA) and the Brazilian Anthropology Association (ABA).

The theme of the inaugural project was “Language and Anthropological Knowledge,” and took the form of a “virtual seminar” held online between the first and the 25th of October 2013. Papers on the theme created by Jaffe and three other language scholars from the sister organizations were translated into all of the languages of the seminar (English, French, Spanish and Portuguese) and then posted on the online seminar platform at the beginning of October. This was followed by (multilingual) written commentary by expert discussants and participants, an online videoconference on October 15 attended by over 120 paraticipants from all over the world, and a ten-day multilingual online exchange/debate following the presentations.

A distinguished CSULB faculty member in the Departments of Anthropology and Linguistics, Dr. Jaffe focuses her research and teaching on minority language planning and politics, language ideology, anthropology and education, bilingual education, language in the media, orthography and transcription, and sociolinguistics.

To access the webinar or for more information about the exciting event and CSULB’s international reach, please see the American Anthropological Association’s website.