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.

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.

Saqer Almarri explores the terms khuntha, mukhannath, and khanith, and their associated identities, along with their linguistic characteristics and literary uses.*

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.

As they share the belief that it is referential language that, in its predictable and transparent patterns, causes death of the mind and rebroadcasts, on the level of writing, the rules of commodity fetishism, Language poets set out to create an alternative linguistic discourse that aims to undermine the instrumental use of language.

One of the insights I took away from the recent MLA conference was the sheer difficulty both of communicating complicated information in a short amount of time when I went to panels, as well as the impossibility of absorbing such an overwhelming volume of information. A key tool that I felt was underutilized during the conference are graphics that could concisely communicate information relevant to literary study.

In a previous post under the title "A Language Emergency," I responded to a brief statement in which Marjorie Perloff noted the insularity of the "tedious discourse of self-reflection" in the United States, especially its results for how Americans are encouraged to learn languages.

Marjorie Perloff has written an insightful essay for the Chronicle of Higher Education about a "curious insularity" that she sees having appeared in the United States as a reaction to the decade of anxiety over 9/11. She wonders whether it is now time to "look outward," as events remind us that this country is neither alone among world powers nor self-sufficient. I would go further than Perloff. We face a language emergency.

It irks me that I was not more sensitive to Tagalog’s status as a dominant and dominating language until I’ve now returned to the Philippines as a literary scholar.

Babies are usually the stuff of private life, clichés, and endearing memories that we check out as we set foot on campus grounds. Yet babies are the greatest--and arguably the cutest--hermeneutic subjects.