Bookshelf

Alumni and faculty members who would like to have their books considered for this listing should contact Stacey Himmelberger, editor of Hamilton magazine. This list, which dates back to 2018, is updated periodically with books appearing alphabetically on the date of entry.

Thinking with an Accent by Pavitra Sundar, associate professor of literature (co-editor)

September 20, 2024

Tags Faculty Book

Everyone speaks with an accent, but what is an accent? This interdisciplinary collection, which was awarded the 2024 René Wellek Prize for Best Edited Collection by the American Comparative Literature Association, introduces accent as a powerfully coded yet underexplored mode of perception that includes looking, listening, acting, reading, and thinking.

According to the publisher, accents do more than denote identity, they negotiate power and invite attunement. “These essays invite the reader to think with an accent — to practice a dialogical and multimodal inquiry that can yield transformative modalities of knowledge, action, and care.”

Recognizing the scope and importance of the book’s interventions, the award committee noted that, “The timeliness of this book cannot be overstated. It is as if the past 50 years of scholarship in the humanities, from the linguistic, cultural, gender, and media sides, had come to fruition in the conceptualization of this volume. Indeed, the impact of this approach to literary, language, and cultural studies promises to be field-changing.

“For a discipline such as comparative literature that puts the rigorous study of as well as the respect and care for languages and literatures at the center of its intellectual pursuit, this book exemplifies the relevance of the humanities as a way of knowing, of being in the world, and as a powerful tool for good.”