English as a Field of Change and Flow

The Department of English at the University of Puerto Rico – Mayagüez welcomes undergraduate and graduate students of English at our institution to submit proposals that focus on current issues, practices, and research in English language teaching, literature, and linguistics in Puerto Rico. In 1996, Günter Kress[1] asked the provocative question “What is English?” in an effort to underscore the need for reconceptualizing English in an era of globalization, mass communication, and profound cultural diversity. Kress noted that English is “a very different thing in different localities with different histories, distinct presents, and distinctly different trajectories into the future.” More recently, Alistair Pennycook (2007) has addressed English, “as a field of change and flow”, while similarly questioning “the extraordinary continuation of the idea that something called English exists”.[2] In this conference, in a period of turbulent political change, both locally and globally, we therefore ask undergraduate and graduate students to consider how they are currently practicing English and engaging in research in this contested and complex field in the local context of Puerto Rico. What is English in Puerto Rico? How is it manifested across studies of language, literacy, literature, linguistics, and pedagogy? How do local conditions and communities, as well as regional perspectives, particularly impact the ways in which the field is conceptualized? What trajectories for English are we mapping for the future?

For further information, please contact Dr. Judy Casey (caseymayaguez@hotmail.com)

or Dr. Mary E. Sefranek (marysefranek@hotmail.com).

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