George Lang
Dr. George Lang was appointed Dean of the Faculty of Arts at University of Ottawa in 2004, retiring in 2009, after which he joined his wife Nasrin Rahimieh on the campus of UC-Irvine. He had previously served as Associate Dean at the University of Alberta, where he was a professor of Modern Languages and Cultural Studies from 1987 to 2004.
Dr. Lang is trained in comparative literature and his primary field of interest is the hybrid languages and cultures that arise through cross-cultural contact. He has written on a range of topics reflecting this theme, notably Entwisted Tongues: Comparative Creole Literatures (2000) and in Making Wawa: The Genesis of Chinook Jargon (2009).
Dr. Lang’s career was shaped by a life of travel. Born in Houston, he left home as soon as he was able, first to study at Beloit College, near Chicago. After a year in Grenoble, France, he spent two years teaching in Liberia, which served as a base for excursions across West Africa. He earned his PhD at the University of Alberta, and also spent several years in Montreal in the school of hard knocks, during which time he was active in socialist politics, serving as a VP of the Québec New Democratic Party 1975-1977, and working as a translator and interpreter, in particular during the 1976 Olympics.
During the 1980s, he worked for Kermit Lynch Wine Merchant based in Berkeley, California, prospecting annually in France and Italy, and he remains an oenophile.
He returned to academa in 1985. Eventually missions from Edmonton took him to Korea and to Japan, where he found inspiration to complete his black belt in aikido. He has had the pleasure of teaching in Cortona, Italy, and in Innsbruck, Austria, and studying flamenco guitar in Andalusia. In October 2007, George Lang was elected president of the Association des facultés et établissements de lettres et de sciences humaines des universités d’expression française (AFELSH). He served until 2013 and continued as webmaster of the association site until 2019.
In retirement he has dedicated himself to his own poetry and translations from French, Spanish, Italian, German, Persian and other languages (https://alteritas.net/pastis/). He has also reviewed various scholarly works in contact linguistics for the Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages.
As Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Dr. Lang promoted international contacts and a curriculum reflecting global realities. He was also an advocate of computer and media technology, favoured multidisciplinary initiatives when appropriate, and was committed to active fundraising.
For his personal Web page, please visit: http://alteritas.net/GXL/
Dr. Lang’s career was shaped by a life of travel. Born in Houston, he left home as soon as he was able, first to study at Beloit College, near Chicago. After a year in Grenoble, France, he spent two years teaching in Liberia, which served as a base for excursions across West Africa. He earned his PhD at the University of Alberta, and also spent several years in Montreal in the school of hard knocks, during which time he was active in socialist politics, serving as a VP of the Québec New Democratic Party 1975-1977, and working as a translator and interpreter, in particular during the 1976 Olympics.
During the 1980s, he worked for Kermit Lynch Wine Merchant based in Berkeley, California, prospecting annually in France and Italy, and he remains an oenophile.
He returned to academa in 1985. Eventually missions from Edmonton took him to Korea and to Japan, where he found inspiration to complete his black belt in aikido. He has had the pleasure of teaching in Cortona, Italy, and in Innsbruck, Austria, and studying flamenco guitar in Andalusia. In October 2007, George Lang was elected president of the Association des facultés et établissements de lettres et de sciences humaines des universités d’expression française (AFELSH). He served until 2013 and continued as webmaster of the association site until 2019.
In retirement he has dedicated himself to his own poetry and translations from French, Spanish, Italian, German, Persian and other languages (https://alteritas.net/pastis/). He has also reviewed various scholarly works in contact linguistics for the Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages.
As Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Dr. Lang promoted international contacts and a curriculum reflecting global realities. He was also an advocate of computer and media technology, favoured multidisciplinary initiatives when appropriate, and was committed to active fundraising.
For his personal Web page, please visit: http://alteritas.net/GXL/
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Articles in Journals by George Lang
Articles in Books by George Lang
to fundamentalist Muslim claims that Islam is prescriptive
in simple ways. To argue otherwise requires knowledge of Islamic hermeneutics, dialectics, and dialogics.
Fischer and Abedi, Debating Muslims (147)
Book Reviews by George Lang
Books by George Lang
to fundamentalist Muslim claims that Islam is prescriptive
in simple ways. To argue otherwise requires knowledge of Islamic hermeneutics, dialectics, and dialogics.
Fischer and Abedi, Debating Muslims (147)
"This study of comparative literature—a "survey history of several creole literatures is fundamentally the history of intellectuals who have chosen to construct a sense of the world around them" (299)—is a good measure of the intentions of the author of Entwisted Tongues, which is not to offer so much a history of objects, that is, texts, as of the men and women who are the authors of those texts. That explains the great erudition of this work which is based on an imposing bibliography. And that in turn derives as much from linguistic phenomena as from economic and political history or geography and demography."
-- Maximilien Laroche, Research in African Literatures Volume 33, Number 3, Fall 2002