In Other Words

A Contextualized Dictionary to Problematize Otherness

Author

Paola Giorgis

Biodata

Paola Giorgis (BA, MA in English and North-American Literature and Studies) holds a PhD in Anthropology of Education and Intercultural Education. She has a long experience of teaching English language, literature, and the visual arts. She has also taight Italian as L2 to migrants and refugees. From these experiences she developed an interest in how an-other language can reproduce or challenge discourses on Otherness. 

She is an Independent Scholar in Critical and Intercultural Pedagogies, and in Critical Language Studies. Her main interest regards a critical, intercultural, and interdisciplinary approach to (foreign) languages and Foreign Language Education able to develop an awareness on how words are used and mobilized in education and public discourse. 

She integrates theoretical references, practices, and research to show how languages inform individual and collective identities and representations, serving processes of manipulation and domination, as well as those of empowerment and emancipation. She has published monographs, articles, chapters in collective works and she has participated to many international conferences. She is co-founder and member of wom.an.ed (women's studies in anthropology and education), collaborates to international journals as member of the Editorial Board and reviewer, and is affiliated to several international associations of Linguistics and Intercultural Studies. 

Her current research and professional interests regard how words and language (re)produce different narratives of Otherness and how such constructions can be problematized.

She is the promoter and the coordinator of the international project of IOW dictionary.

Among most recent publications:

  • Giorgis, P. (2022). Who is the Other? How to subvert discriminating language and stereotypes from within. Two practical examples. Rhetoric & Communication. Special Issue on the Rhetoric of Otherness. Issue 50. ISSN1314-44-64. https://journal.rhetoric.bg/?page_id=3070
  • Giorgis, P.  (2021). Rewinding failure. An ex-post autoethnography on an educational failure. In Giorgis, P., Peano, G., Pescarmona, I., Sansoé, R., Setti, F. Within different perspectives. Critical experiences in education, interculture and ethnography. New York: DIO Press.
  • Giorgis, P. (2020.) The Construction of the Enemy. The Strategic Use of Rhetorical Devices in Italian New Populisms. The Journal of Rhetoric and Communications. Issue 44 2020. http://journal.rhetoric.bg/
  • Giorgis, P. (2019) “A walk on the intercultural side of L2/LS. Un’attività in classe come occasione per una riflessione di sociopragmatica critica in L2/LS”. [A walk on the intercultural side of L2/LS. A classroom activity as an opportunity for a reflection of critical L2/LS Sociopragmatics]. LIA – Lingua In Azione. 1/11, 2018. Athens: Casus
  • Giorgis, P. (2018). Meeting Foreignness. Foreign Language and Foreign Language Education as Critical and Intercultural Experiences. Boulder CO, New York NY: Lexington, Rowman & Littlefield.

Contacts

paola dot giorgis at iowdictionary dot org

 

More info at:

- CID, Center for Intercutural Dialogue, https://centerforinterculturaldialogue.org/?s=giorgis

- Researching Multilingually at the Border, http://researching-multilingually-at-borders.com/?page_id=1818

- Visual Arts Circle (VAC), https://visualartscircle.com/members/members-p-t/

- wom.an.ed (women's studies in anthropology and education), https://www.womaned.org/team-en

Words

ageism published
foreignness published
incel published
propaganda published
tradition published

Words of COVID-19

war [guerra] published