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"A Lesson of Love" and Translation Thoughts

Burcu Karahan's recently published collection of short stories features this translator's note. Following the translator's note is "A Lesson of Love," a story Karahan translates in the collection and mentions in her translator's note. 

I’ve spent a good part of the last two years transcribing and...

Painting of an early modern Mughal emperor being carried on a palanquin
Persianate Words and Worlds

The primary aim of this Theories and Methodologies special feature (PMLA, March 2024) is to spotlight work on 'the Persianate' in the disciplines of language and literature. The essayists examine the aesthetic, cultural, linguistic, political, religious, economic, and social currents that both construct the Persianate world and compromise it at key moments not just in history but also in certain analytic contexts.

Illustration of Mont Saint Michel amongst light clouds
The French Inheritance

Galvez first reflects on how she views canonicity as a medievalist working in Old French and Old Occitan. Second, she explores how the mediality of medieval studies can help us convey to our students the relevance of French literature today. Finally, she synthesizes her points on French literary history and medieval studies to argue that scholars of different periods and methodologies can and ought to reinvest in a shared inheritance of global French.

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Global Englishes, Rhyme, and Rap: A Meditation Upon Shifts in Rhythm

This essay considers how the Somali-born hip-hop artist K’naan occasionally uses rhymes that embody a slight but perceptually noticeable shift in the rhythms of global Englishes. Our verse prosody is being reshaped by the rhythmic contours of speakers who bring the prosody of their first language to bear upon their rhythmicization of English. This is no matter of local or virtuosic performance but a structural shift in the texture of our language.