Sojourner Truth

Read Sojourner Truth's "Ain't I a Woman?" speech (http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/sojtruth-woman.asp) and consider how Truth uses language to construct a particular gender identity. Then read her poem "On Woman's Dress" (http://allpoetry.com/poem/8611359-On_Womans_Dress-by-Sojourner_Truth) and consider the same question, along with how it compares to the extemporaneous speech given approximately 10 years earlier.

Nicholas Kristof on Veterans

Hi folks:

Here are the links I told you about in class. I've also emailed them to you and posted them on the portal. Sharing them here will give you the space to post a response, if you are so inclined. The links include Nicholas Kristof's article in Sunday's The New York Times, his blog, on which he shares additional background information about his research, and a short documentary film on Ryan Yurchison's service and death. It is a disturbing story, and the video especially can be difficult to watch, but it is a story worth paying attention to and very relevant to George Carlin's work on the language of Shell Shock/Post-traumatic Stress Disorder.

Is this what is at stake when we discuss the language we use to refer to, and thereby to understand, PTSD? 

Nicholas Kristof's NYTimes article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/15/opinion/sunday/kristof-a-veterans-death-the-nations-shame.html?_r=1

Kristof's blog, "On the Ground:"
http://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/14/failing-our-military-veterans/

"Good Night Ryan:"
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/15/opinion/good-night-ryan.html?_r=1&ref=sunday

Show Me presentations

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Endangered Languages

An expert quoted in the article "said that more than half the languages had no written form and were 'vulnerable to loss and being forgotten.'" What is the signficance of a language being lost in writing VS. speaking? Is it more important to try and preserve one type over another?