Language for the Fluid, Multiple, Unified Self
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14195/2182-8830_11-1_2Keywords:
nonviolent language, mixed heritance, meaning-making processAbstract
This is the text of a keynote address delivered online at the 2023 Electronic Literature Organization Conference, Overcoming Divides: Electronic Literature and Social Change hosted by the Universidade de Coimbra and held at different venues in Coimbra, Portugal and online from 12 to 15 July 2023. This talk is about how I am using my artistic practice to look for nonviolent language. It might be more accurate to say “create” nonviolent language, because I think it’s a practice. I’m trying to create situations in which people have access to use language in new ways, to create their own meanings, and to have others hear them. In this talk, I’ll share some of what I’m working on, as well as past projects. I’ll give some background to my artistic research, suggest a few characteristics that I imagine for nonviolent language, and present different projects that I’m using to investigate these characteristics.
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References
GARCIA, Ofelía (2007). “Foreword.” Disinventing and Reconstituting Languages, edited by Sinfree Makoni and Alastair Pennycook. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
GLISSANT, Édouard (1997). Poetics of Relation. Trans. Betsy Wing. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
HANAFI, Amira (2009). Minced English. Chicago: AHA Books.
HANAFI, Amira (2018). A dictionary of the revolution. https://qamosalthawra.com/en. Accessed 26 October 2023.
OTHEGUY, Ricardo, Ofelia García, and Wallis Reid (2015). “Clarifying translanguaging and
deconstructing named languages: A perspective from linguistics.” Applied Linguistics Review 6, no. 3: 281–307.
OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY. “Information.” https://www.oed.com/information/updates/previous-updates/2000-2/. Accessed 26 October 2023.
YNGVE, V. (1996) From Grammar to Science: New Foundations for General Linguistics.
Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
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Copyright (c) 2025 Amira Hanafi

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