FISH Conference : Texts in the city: power and discourse (19 March 2014, Johannesburg)

Wednesday 19 March, 15:00
Conference Room, 62 Juta Street, 1^st floor, Braamfontein, Johannesburg
RSVP: comm.research@ifas.org.za

William Kelleher
Professeur certifié. Académie d’Aix-Marseille

Texts in the City: Power and Discourse
Based on my Master’s thesis, this seminar is an exploration of the place, and space, of two neighbourhoods: the Marché du Soleil neighbourhood in Marseille, France, and the Bosman neighbourhood in Pretoria, South Africa. I wish to understand how the formal and informal texts that are visible in the street (the linguistic landscape, or LL) are revelatory of subjective experience, local and non-local discourses, as also broader social processes. This is to say that studying the production, reception and placement of these texts is a way of exploring not only power and access as these apply in the space of the street, but also migration, education and literacy, cultural belonging and empowerment.

Bio
William Kelleher is a teacher on long leave from the Académie d’Aix-Marseille, France, and currently working as an English teacher in a community school in east Johannesburg. His research focuses on the city and on the role of texts visible in the street in constructing place and understanding identity.