Welcome!
The School of Languages, Cultures, and Race offers exciting opportunities in education, research, study abroad, and community involvement for both undergraduate and graduate students.
Centered on cultivating deep transdisciplinary understanding of linguistic, cultural, national, social, and racial perspectives in a global context, the school provides students with key knowledge, skills, and experience for success in an increasingly diverse and integrated global society.
We invite you to explore our website and to stop by the main office in Thompson Hall, room 110, to say hello. You can also read about the formation of SLCR and the school’s director in the College of Arts & Sciences Story Hub.
Please visit the WSU COVID-19 website for up-to-date information on university operations.
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Message from the Director
(January 2021)
As an American citizen who is the Director of a unit that includes American Studies and Culture as well as Comparative Ethnic Studies, and as the Spring semester is about to start, I feel obligated to make a statement about the spectacle that we witnessed in this country on January 6, 2021. As a Puerto Rican, I grew up in the interstices and periphery of both Latin America and the United States. That positionality gave me a unique perspective on our hemisphere and taught me enough to recognize a de facto attempt at changing a democratically elected government. Protesting is a right granted to all who reside in the United States by the Constitution. Stopping or interfering with the process of democracy is not. These events should remind us that we have a collective responsibility to make sure our students understand that a patriot is not made by the waving of a flag, for terrorists wave flags too. Distinctions are important. Decency is important. Democracy is important. And while we continue to maneuver the current situation and its repercussions and fallout, I can only hope that the principles and the spirit of democracy prevail.
If the events of January 6, 2021 showed us anything is that who “we” are as a country at the beginning of 2021 is not who “we” should be. Ever. But it is who “we” have been for a long time. We also got a jolting reminder that democracy is fragile and it must be (re)created everyday by the words and actions of its denizens. As we do that, we must also provide alternative visions and understandings showing that a different version of our current society and a different world are possible. Since the unit I direct also includes the study of Languages, I would like to advocate for a version where the weaving of language and history has more weight than bullets and violence. One where communicating frustrations and disappointments is done through words. Where words are held as accountable as actions because they inflict as much damage. But different from violent actions, words and language can be magnificent and create an equally magnificent world. It is in that spirit that I finish this statement with the repurposed words of late educator Howard Zinn: “They have the guns, we have the poets. Therefore, we will win.”
Dr. Carmen R. Lugo-Lugo
Director, School of Languages, Cultures, and Race
Professor of Comparative Ethnic Studies and American Studies and Culture
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
NEWS!!
(January 2021)
Dr. Francisco Arellano Serratos (Spanish, Tri Cities) published his new book El Capitaloceno with Publicaciones Fomento Cultural. Congrats, Francisco! #SLCRFacultyChronicles
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Student Resources
Art for Social Change Competition and Showcase
News & Events
- New! (December 2020) For five weeks our students of French listened to French songs while participating in an engaging contest organized by Sabine Davis (Professor, Career Track, French). Dr. Insook Webber (Assistant Professor, Career Track, French) and Dr. Mark Black (Lecturer, French) helped with the voting process. The winners:
• First place: Josh Bruns• Second place: Jansen Garside• Tied for third place: Kyle Moon, Reid Brown ,and Safiya Bouacheria
Congratulations to all! And thank you to Sabine Davis and the French section for organizing such fun learning opportunity for students.
- Interview with John Streamas on his work by Washington State Magazine. To access the interview, go here.
- Director Carmen R. Lugo-Lugo and Professor Mary K. Bloodsworth-Lugo (CES) published an article titled Narratives of Infectious Threat and Contagion Crises in Contemporary Immigration Rhetoric in the journal Label Me Latina/o.
- Watch Associate Professor John Streamas read two poems here
- French Major Vanessa Giramata was recognized as first Schwarzman distinguished scholarship finalist. See the story here.
- Cassandra Gulam Recognized for Community Language Project
- Get the Scoop on SLCR News here
SLCR Office
Staff of The School of Languages, Cultures, and Race are currently complying with WSU’s directive to continue to work from home.
However, we are still available through phone, email, and other technology.
Contact Us
509-335-4135
slcr@wsu.edu
Follow us @ WSUslcr on
Make a Gift
Support scholarships, research, and experiential learning opportunities.