Jamie A. Thomas
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#languagestory blog

Video & perspectives on communication, intercultural learning & the impact of anthropological research.

Voces - Voices from Havana and Santiago de Cuba

9/28/2017

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"I got to do an entire interview with [a local artist] in Spanish, and that was a huge confidence booster. I was like, yeah! I can do this! My Spanish is alright!"
​                       - Student reflecting on our AfroCuba research and experiential learning course
There's so much to be learned from listening to the voices of others. This past semester and summer, I was fortunate enough to have been part of an interdisciplinary team that prepared 17 undergraduate students for field research in Cuba. For nearly all of us, this was our first time to the island. For some of us, this was our first experience on an airplane, or outside of the U.S. Together, we represented studies in anthropology, Black Studies, linguistics, cultural studies, economics, environmental studies, Spanish, sociology, and visual and performance arts. ​This was a tremendous experience in intercultural learning and bilingual communication. 

All throughout our 10-day research and study trip, I conducted intermittent video interviews with students, my teaching partners at Swarthmore College--a team of faculty and administrative leadership. I created this video to chronicle our individual and connected reflections on multiple dimensions of our field experiences.

An Experience of Firsts.

Touring a cigar factory in Havana, Cuba.Touring a cigar factory in Havana, Cuba.
Biggest of all, this was our students' first experience speaking with Cuban people in Cuba about the enduring importance of the Cuban Revolution, the history of African enslavement in the Caribbean, the transformation of economic, education, and medical sectors, and the continuing traditions of African religion, dance, philosophy, and values across the island nation.

By speaking with Cuban professionals, mothers, doctors, museum directors, proprietors, artists, community activists, and makers of all kinds, students learned how to formulate meaningful and localized questions, connect with speakers of Cuban Spanish, and challenge their own assumptions about what is universally important to cultures other than their own. 

Our trip was generously sponsored through support from several partner organizations and departments across the College, and we are grateful!


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This is How We Dismantle Structural Injustice and Normalized Bigotry

11/13/2016

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by Jamie A. Thomas

Calling Out Our Roles in Perpetuating Normalized Injustice.

Walking in North PhillyMy students and I walking in North Philly with community activist and resident, .O.
Though many of us feel there's something deeply wrong about denying opportunities to girls and women, we are okay with demanding that women be judged by their femininity, hairstyles, and nail polish, or lack thereof. Even though we acknowledge that it takes the involvement of men, along with women, to stop sexism, how many of us readily understand that the burden of dismantling racist thinking and practice lies not primarily with marginalized groups?

Just two days after the presidential election result, and students in my regularly scheduled classes seemed lifeless and downtrodden, defeated and deflated. They had no questions, no thoughts for discussion, because their world had let them down. Somehow they had thought one vote would do it all, but I told them that it was never just about this election.

The dog whistles coming from Clinton's opponent (and his tacit supporters) were sounding the very racialization, sexist anxiety, and empowered prejudice that has festered in the U.S. since before its founding. It's a fundamentalist voice that hides behind economic anxiety and patriotism, while minoritizing, marginalizing, and dehumanizing many of the very people who seek to make this union more perfect. Hate speech and its accompanying mob violence, vigilante aggression, structural injustices, and covert, normalized language of biological inferiority have never been fully denounced in this country, and that is the true shame of this moment. 

Anyone clambering to declare "I am not a racist", has likely been unwilling to examine their participation in and benefit from structural inequity. For those of us who think we couldn't possibly be racist, sexist, ableist, class-ist, or otherwise, how do we treat people who (don't) look or sound like us? How much are our lowered expectations, dismissals, fears, and misunderstandings communicated in words like minority, wife, gay, ugly, unattractive, ghetto, poor, weak, foreign? What behaviors do we need to change, along with our language? How can we encourage each other to change?

My students looked so dejected, some close to tears. But this wasn't the time to tap out, I insisted. Now, more than ever, we needed to learn from this election, and from each other. We need to listen, reach out, and work together for social and structural change. And with that, I began preparing us for a visit to Serenity House, a community house and support center in North Philadelphia, where we would have a conversation with community partners about neighborhood activism and identity. 


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#MoralityRaceBody Video: How Do We Define the Other?

5/28/2016

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What is Human? How do we define the Other?

These were questions addressed in our experimental roundtable discussion on April 28, 2016 at Swarthmore College. The event provided an amazing first opportunity to bring together scholars in the Philadelphia area to discuss intersecting themes of morality, race, and the body. The conversation attracted an audience interested in moral emotion, the brain, human classification, urban redevelopment, Vodun, zombies, and the afterlife.

​Part 2 of our discussion (~20 mins, video available below), particularly concerns historical and contemporary imaginings of the body and afterlife through religious and other lenses. We ask: Which bodies, brains, and emotions are considered righteous and human? Who gets to have an afterlife? What happens to the body in the afterlife?

Part 2 of Morality, Race, and the Body: An Interdisciplinary Conversation from Jamie Thomas on Vimeo.


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Zombies = Race, Gender, Politics, and Beyoncé

5/23/2016

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Lemonade. 

So, on the last day of class this semester, I brought snacks to celebrate with my students. Some chocolate cake, spicy Doritos, and I always like a little bit of lemonade. I figure it couldn't hurt. I set it all on the table at the front of the room, along with a display of books we'd sampled in our syllabus, and some new ones I wanted to encourage students to pick up. 

When it came time to pass around the snacks, my students asked me if had brought the lemonade on purpose. "Uh, no, not really, I just like it." And they were surprised, because all they could think about was Beyoncé's new release. They asked if they could play the album while we circulated thank-you cards to write. "Sure, why not?" 
Alex and Eojin present their TimelineJS of *Engendering Zombie Fiction*, their segment of our exhibit now available online.
Alex and Eojin present their TimelineJS of *Engendering Zombie Fiction*, their segment of our exhibit now available online.
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Samples from our course syllabus: From *The Walking Dead* to *European Thought in the Eighteenth Century*.
Samples from our course syllabus: From *The Walking Dead* to *European Thought in the Eighteenth Century*.
The single Hold Up begins playing across our projector screen, and I begin thinking about how themes in the song relate to key aspects of our seminar on Languages of Fear, Racism, and Zombies. This semester, we had spent time interrogating the reasons for our fears of writing, of others, and of being controlled by "The Man." So some of the words coming out of Beyoncé's mouth were not so far off from conversations we'd had throughout the semester about the concomitant role of discourse in controlling bodies and perpetuating fear of the Other. But my students were already aware of this. After all, two had incorporated discussion of Beyoncé into their final project as part of [ZOMBIES REIMAGINED], our collaborative digital exhibit. This blog post introduces our exhibit and explains how we pulled it all together.​

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#MoralityRaceBody: A Public Conversation 4/28

4/26/2016

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What makes us human? How do we define the Other?

These are questions that fascinate me greatly, particularly because of my own growing interest in zombies, but also because of my obsession with understanding language and discourse as behaviors and practices in societal context.

I'd like to invite you to join me and a panel of 6 others from the Greater Philadelphia area as we discuss these and other queries on humanity in an experimental, interdisciplinary public conversation on Thursday, April 28, 7:30pm at Swarthmore College.

Morality, Race,
​and the Body

A public conversation and soft launch event for
Zombies Reimagined: A Digital Exhibit

Thursday, April 28, 7:30pm in Bond Hall
​Swarthmore College

Come for hors d'oeuvres and stay for conversation!
*Sponsored by the Swarthmore College Department of Linguistics

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Panelists to include:

Emily August
Literature, Stockton University
Bodies in Medical Textbooks

Yvonne Chireau
Religion, Swarthmore College
Vodun, Race, & Control

Christina Jackson
Sociology, Stockton University
Bodies in Protest

Paul Mitchell
Forensic Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania
Scientific Racism, Social & Biological Race



Jamie A. Thomas
Linguistics, Swarthmore College
Discourses of Zombies & Afterlives

Krista Thomason
Philosophy, Swarthmore College
​Moral Emotions & Human Rights

Jess Wright
Classics, Princeton University
Medieval Mappings of the Moral Brain

Bringing the Panel Together: <Jess Wright> calls them "Medieval MRIs"

How did this panel come together? Well, about a month ago, I had the tremendous fortune of meeting Classics specialist Jess Wright while visiting Princeton for a workshop. A mutual friend introduced us over mint tea, and the rest was history. Literally. We talked about how people conceptualized other humans in the past, and she began telling me about her research on medieval understandings of the brain. 

Jess described how her work connected to early Christian conceptions of deviance and the Other, and where in the brain and body 4th century Europeans assumed our capacities for love, thought, and evil were stored. These were like "medieval MRIs," she added.

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    Jamie A. Thomas is a linguistic anthropologist and digital media producer. Her forthcoming book Zombies Speak Swahili is all about the undead, videogames, and viral Black language. She teaches at Santa Monica College.

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